Hyderabad - South African Dale Steyn took three wickets for eight runs and led the Deccan Chargers to a nine-run victory over the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League on Sunday.
The defeat knocked the Challengers out of the playoffs as the defending champion Chennai Super Kings went through thanks to a superior run-rate after both teams finished with 17 points.
JP Duminy smashed 74 off 53 balls to lift the Chargers' total to 132/7 before Steyn removed the dangerous Chris Gayle (27) and Tillakaratne Dilshan in successive overs before clean bowling Zaheer Khan in his last over as the Challengers finished with 123/9.
The Chargers ended up second from the bottom in the nine-team league with nine points from just four wins, 11 defeats and one no-result.
Gayle, who scored a century in the previous game against leaders Delhi Daredevils, gave his team another blistering start when he smashed three fours and two sixes in seamer Manpreet Singh's first over of the innings.
However, Steyn struck twice in successive overs when first Gayle played onto a short pitched delivery and Tillakaratne Dilshan was out leg before wicket.
Leg-spinner Amit Mishra got two wickets in one over that reduced Challengers to 57/4 before stand-in captain Virat Kohli (42) and Saurabh Tiwari got the innings back on track with a 46-run stand.
Kohli hit seamer Ashish Reddy for a straight six but needlessly tried to repeat the shot off the next delivery and was caught at long on. Tiwari also came under pressure as the asking rate rose to more than 10 an over and the left-hander finally top edged Veer Pratap Singh in the 19th over to Kumar Sangakkara at midwicket.
"We could have played better shots, we did not play the right shots on that wicket," Kohli said. "My wicket probably changed the game. We just need to learn from our mistakes and come back stronger next year."