In a stellar performance expressed at the MCA Stadium, Pune, Chennai Super Kings thrashed Delhi Daredevils from ball two as they managed to post the mountain of 211/4 runs batting first. Shane Watson was at his lethal best and was en route to another ton but fell short. MS Dhoni and Ambati Rayudu kept the momentum and reduced DD bowling to a pulp.
The toss was won by young Shreyas Iyer who was confident after last match heroics and chose to field first. Delhi went into the match unchanged. Chennai, on the other hand, made as many as four changes. Shardul Thakur, Deepak Chahar, Sam Billings and Imran Tahir had to sit out to make the places for Lungi Ngidi, KM Asif, FAF Du Plessis and Karn Sharma.
The start of the match was extremely eventful. The first ball, Trent Boult caught Shane Watson plumb in front of the stumps. Umpire gave him not out on the basis of an inside edge. DD went for the review. Third Umpire ruled in the favor of the batsman and Watson opened his hands by smacking next ball for a boundary.
In the fifth over bowled by Liam Plunkett, Shane Watson using the breeze smashed him for three sixes. Another 11 runs were scored in the over of Avesh Khan and CSK at the end of the powerplay scored 56/0 with Watto being 31*(17).
Even after the powerplay, Watson attacked relentlessly and kept hitting big sixes. He hit a brace of sixes each in the overs bowled by Rahul Tewatia and Liam Plunkett. DD managed a comeback of sorts when they took two quick wickets of Du Plessis and Raina. CSK was 103/2 in the 12th over.
Soon the veteran Amit Mishra managed a way to get Watson out and he went back for a magnificent 78 runs from 40 balls with 7 sixes. Dhoni and Rayudu joined each other with CSK being 131/3 after 14 overs.
The next six overs yielded 80 runs with 51 runs off 21 balls coming from MS Dhoni. He smacked two boundaries and five sixes. Rayudu was again run-out for 41 from 24 balls. The worse hit amongst bowlers was Liam Plunkett who went for 53 runs off his three overs conceding as many as six sixes.
Delhi Daredevils face a stiff challenge of chasing down 212 runs against a fresh Chennai bowling attack.
