Kings XI beats Super kings in a thriller of a match
Kings XI Punjab held their nerve till the end to post their first one in IPL 3 against Chennai Super Kings in a low scoring match. Kings XI have taken the match to super over and even beaten Super Kings which fancied chances till the end.
Suresh Raina won the toss and put Kings XI in to bat. Its skipper Sangakkara made Ravi Bopara and Irfan Pathan to open the innings. Bopara went out cheaply for 1 scored out of 8 balls. Pathan known for his good batting skills started thrashing the bowlers to give a decent start. But Super Kings bowlers always bowled tightly especially legendary spinner Muthiah Muralitharan. He took the wickets of his fellow national players Kumara Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene. He took 3 wickets for 16 from 4 overs. Albie Morkel is the other bowler who bowled with lot of accuracy who took a wicket for 23 runs.
Yuvraj Singh came out with the purpose and has done exactly that. He has smashed 4 boundaries and 2 sixes during his aggressive innings. He quickly reached 43 from 28 balls and threatened to set a high total. But he succumbed to Morkel when tried to clear mid-on boundary. There were no substantial contributions other than Irfan Pathan who batted really well in top of the order to score 39 of 32 balls with 5 fours and a six. End of the innings 137 is the score set by Kings XI, which is not that challenging.
Hayden and Parthiv given a rousing start and laid a good platform to win the match which could have been the third straight win for them. But Super Kings batsmen after the Hayden assault has made total mess and themselves in to trouble. Parthiv Patel did score his 50 but failed to complete the job when the preposition was very good when he stepped out unnecessarily to get stumped. Earlier middle order batsmen Badrinath and Vijay too went out cheaply to make the situation worse for Super Kings.
Juan Theron who was having an IPL debut bowled superbly to take the match to the last over. Ramesh Powar who has opened the bowling has done a good job in restricting Super Kings and also got a priced scalp of Hayden. Manpreet Goni who earlier bowled badly played a bad shot at the wrong moment to put Super Kings in great trouble. The match was tied and taken to historic super over concept for the first time in IPL 3.
