Doug Bollinger led Deccan Chargers' rout as a ruthless Chennai Super Kings crushed the defending champions by 38 runs in the second semifinal of the Indian Premier League tonight to set up a summit clash with Mumbai Indians on Sunday.
Opting to bat first, the Super Kings looked in trouble before a 52-run partnership between skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni (30) and S Badrinath (37) guided them to a competitive 142 for seven. For the Chargers, Ryan Harris bowled a fine initial spell to get rid off openers Murali Vijay and Mathew Hayden cheaply and finished with excellent figures of three for 29.
The Super Kings, however, returned to defend the total with all their might and resource, skittling out their opponents for 104 in 19.2 overs and dashing Deccan Chargers' hopes of a successful title defence. For Chennai, Bollinger (4/13) stood out, having rocked the Deccan top order and then dropping curtains on the opponent's innings with his tidy four overs. Left-arm spinner Shadab Jakati also chipped in with two crucial wickets to hasten Deccan's fall.
Chasing a modest target, the Chargers were never in the game as they lost wickets at regular intervals and their listless batting could be gauged from the fact that Andrew Symonds topscored them with a 22-ball 23.
The Chargers will now return to the same DY Patil Stadium on Saturday where they take on Royal Challengers Bangalore for the third place playoff, which will decide which one of them would join Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings in the Champions League Twenty20 later this year.
The Chargers' chase got off to a poor start and skipper Adam Gilhrist's (15) dismissal in the sixth over was not only the continuation of his personal bad patch but also a bad omen as the Chargers never got any partnership going. Herschelle Gibbs (18), Symonds and B Sumanth (16) got the starts but could not capitalise on it.
Earlier the Chargers bowlers stuck to their task brilliantly and even though there were spilled chances early on, managed to apply the brakes effectively to give their batsmen a golden chance to overhaul the modest Super Kings total.
Super Kings made a shock start by losing their top three batsmen, including in-form Suresh Raina, inside five overs with only 29 runs on board and never recovered. PTI
