Chasing 186 for victory, Chennai Super Kings scored 190/5 in 19.1 overs. Both Delhi and Chennai were without their regular captains Gautam Gambhir and MS Dhoni as Dinesh Karthik and Suresh Raina played stand-ins.

Virender Sehwag (74 off 38 balls) gave a sparkling start to Delhi even as he lost Australian explosive opener David Warner who came in place of the injured Gambhir. He brought up his 50 in 22 deliveries while Delhi’s 50 came in the fifth over. Delhi were cruising along but at 102 when Muralitharan provided twin breakthroughs at a crucial juncture of the game.  He got Tilakratne Dilshan to play a false shot and one run later Sehwag was caught by Justin Kemp. R Ashwin then sent back AB de Villiers for 2 as the Daredevils lost three wickets in space of five runs.  Mithun Manhas (32 off 22 balls) and all-rounder Rajat Bhatia (21 off nine balls) provided a late flourish as Delhi somehow managed to post a challenging total of 185/6.

But the evening belonged to the burly Hayden and his Mongoose bat. After two failures, the former Aussie opener toyed with the hapless Delhi Daredevils bowlers. He launched into the attack in the fifth over hitting his first six off Rajat Bhatia and then in the eighth over, Dilshan faced the wrath of Hayden’s bat as he was clubbed for three sixes as the 50 for the Chennai Super King’s was raised in 5 overs and then the 100 came in 10 overs. With Suresh Raina, Hayden added 50 runs in 23 deliveries. Delhi Daredevils finally dismissed Hayden with Dilshan bringing off a superlative catch at long on and then Chennai Super Kings lost two more wickets of Justin Kemp (bowled) and Albie Morkel (caught at mid-wicket) but Raina with a 34-ball 49 not out saw the team through with five balls to spare.

This was the second successive win for Chennai Super Kings, sans their skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, while Delhi Daredevils tasted their second defeat in a row.

Match report courtesy Adfactors PR.