IPL 4 Qualifier 1: Chennai Super Kings Storm into Final over RCB with Super Finish

The Chennai Super Kings did not seem like they could win a berth in the IPL 4 final with a win in the IPL 4 Qualifier 1. However, it was the Royal Challengers Bangalore who were in for a shock they did not see coming.

suresh raina csk in qualifier

The Royal Challengers Bangalore lost Chris Gayle early into the match and it was expected that the RCB team would wobble in the first IPL 4 qualifier at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. However, the Royal Challengers Bangalore have not been a one man show entirely.

Virat Kohli is not ranked highly for nothing. In the absence of the dynamite opening performance from Gayle, Kohli was RCB's next bit bet. In partnership with Mayank Agarwal, Kohli set about consolidating and nullifying the early loss of Gayle.

Luke Pomersbach validated his selection with his cameo of twenty-nine runs towards the end. However, it was Virat Kohli who was at the centre of the Royal Challengers Bangalore's strong total of 175. Kohli's seventy runs from forty-four balls were just the dose the Royal Challengers Bangalore to ensure that the Chennai team did not breathe easy after Gayle.

But in what appeared to be a repeat of the dress rehearsal, the Chennai Super Kings seemed under the spell of the Royal Challengers Bangalore as even Zaheer Khan appeared to shake off his post World Cup fatigue and joined Sreenath Arvind and Abhimanyu Mithun in maintaining a tight leash such that Chennai lost two crucial wickets for seven and made only twenty-eight rusn in the first seven overs.

It did not seem possible for Chennai to overcome the tall order of twelve runs an over when they needed fifty-six runs from twenty-four balls. Subramanaim Badrinath contributed thirty-four runs with Suresh Raina batting possible cramps in keeping it together for Chennai against what seemed insurmountable odds and the possibility of another match and fight for the final.

Raina's injury was a blessing in disguise as he took the aerial route, slamming six sixes en route to a match winning innings of seventy-three balls from fifty balls. His partnership with Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the Chennai Super Kings captain, was critical after Badrinath's dismissal because of the sixty runs that kept the engine running.

Despite Dhoni's twenty-nine and Raina's perseverance, the last four overs still needed a miracle. And Chennai had it in the form of Zaheer Khan. Twenty runs from the seventeenth over and Chennai's odds had remarkably improved. With Albie Morkel coming to the party with perhaps his most important cameo of the tournament with twenty-eight runs from ten balls, it was the Chennai Super Kings, the IPL 3 champions, not Royal Challengers Bangalore, who had booked their direct berth to the IPL 4 final in front of their home crowd in Chennai.