Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni smashed an unbeaten 54 off 29 balls to beat Kings XI Punjab by 6 wickets and take Chennai Super Kings to IPL 3 semifinals at HPCA Stadium in Dharamsala on Sunday.
Dhoni's knock was studded with 2 huge sixes and 5 fours and he finished the match with 2 balls to spare.
Subramaniam Badrinath smashed a half-century off 35 balls before Piyush Chawla had him stumped by Kumar Sangakkara. Badrinath hit 2 sixes and 7 fours in his 36-ball knock.
Suresh Raina smashed 3 sixes and 5 fours in his 27-ball 46 before he was dismissed by Juan Theron.
Raina became the first player to hit 1300 runs in IPL history enroute his fiery knock before Theron had him caught by Karan Goel at sweeper-cover.
Raina's swashbuckling knock came after Ramesh Powar dismissed Matthew Hayden and Murali Vijay in successive overs to dent the Chennai run chase.
Powar first had Hayden (5) caught behind by Kumar Sangakkara in the third over.
Powar, who opened the attack for Punjab, struck in his second over by tossing up a delivery, Hayden set himself up to play a big shot, but it bounced slightly shorter than he expected and then turned just enough to take the outside edge.
In the next over, Powar induced Vijay out of the crease by another flighted delivery. Vijay looked to get close to the pitch of the ball, but it turned sharply down the leg side and Sangakkara completed a sharp stumping.
Earlier, Shaun Marsh and Irfan Pathan added 99 runs off 48 balls for the fourth wicket to power Punjab to 192/3.
Marsh's unbeaten 88 off 57 balls was studded with 5 sixes and 8 fours and Pathan's 27-ball 44 came with the help of a six and 4 fours.
The unbeaten stand came after R Ashwin clean bowled Sangakkara (33) and in the next over Suresh Raina trapped Yuvraj Singh (1) plumb in front of the wicket to reduce Punjab to 93/3.
Punjab lost Mahela Jayawardene in the third over when Sudeep Tyagi took a good catch at mid-off off Albie Morkel after Chennai skipper MS Dhoni won the toss and opted to bowl in their must-win encounter.
