IPL: Morkel’s Power Over Wins Chennai Super Kings A Thrilling Match

Chennai Super Kings (CSK) chased the second highest total in the history of IPL when they overtook Royal Challengers Bangalore’s (RCB) total of 205 to win the match by five wickets.

With 43 runs needed off the last two overs of the match, RCB would have considered itself to be in a safe zone. But Morkel tore into Kohli, who bowled the penultimate over, with the six balls reading: 4,6,4,6,2,6. The plundering of 28 runs of the 19^th over brought the equation down to 15 off the last over. Though only one run and the wicket of Morkel came off the first two balls of the 20^th over bowled by Vinay Kumar, a boundary off a no-ball and then a six to third man hit by Bravo brought CSK to within touching distance of the target. When two runs were needed off the last ball, Jadeja edged a wide ball by Vinay Kumar to the third man boundary to give CSK a win. Before this late hitting, it was Du Plessis’ 71 and Dhoni’s 41 that had built the platform.

RCB who had won the toss, elected to bat on very humid day in Chennai. Helped by Gayle’s 68, Kohli’s 57 and Mayank Agarwal’s 45, RCB went about building a huge score. But six wickets in the last two overs with one 7 runs from the 20^th over, meant that RCB got at least 10 runs less than what they were expected to get.