Champions Chennai Scrape Through To Last Ball Victory

IPL 2011 need a cracker to start off to grab the attention of cricket fans of India who are still not done with their World cup winning celebrations. The MA Chidambaram Stadium witnessed a nail biting match which Chennai ultimately won although Kolkata Knight Riders were walking to victory and it seemed the defending champions were in for a upset in IPL 2011 opener. A brilliant run-out from MS Dhoni helped Chennai revive their chances and ultimately go on to win the match. Kolkata Knight Riders just seemed to lose their way after  Jacques Kallis holed out attempting a a cute paddle-sweep. After this Eoin Morgan got dismissed by the part-time spin of Suresh Raina while skipper Gautam Gambhir was culprit of  crazy running to leave the Chennai sensing victory.

Even at this point though the target was not out of reach of Kolkata. Kolkata still needed 33 off the final three overs. It became 26 off 12 as Tim Southee showed off his death-over skills with a tight over. Suraj Randiv who was making his IPL debut conceded 17 runs off the first four deliveries and the match seemed to be slliping away for Chennai. Randhiv switched to round the wicket and fired it quicker and wider on the penultimate ball, and then got the breakthrough on the last delivery.

Kolkata Knight Riders needed 9 runs off the last over which was not tough but Laxmiratan Shukla was caught at short-third man off the third delivery which meant two new batsmen at the crease needed to score five runs off three deliveries. But Tim Southee's death over balling skills came handy as KKR could only manage to score two runs off the remaining three deliveries giving Chennai a two run victory.