IPL
Bangalore ease into final
2009-05-23 20:20
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Johannesburg - The Royal Challengers Bangalore beat the Chennai Super Kings by six
wickets to reach the final of the 2009 IPL at the Wanderers Stadium,
Johannesburg, on Saturday.
An opening stand of 61 runs between Parthiv Patel and Matthew Hayden helped the Chennai Super Kings to 146 for five.
However, Chennai would be disappointed not to have capitalised on the
fine start that their openers gave them as five batsmen reached double
figures but no one scored more than Patel’s brisk 36 off 27 balls with
seven fours.
Bangalore captain Anil Kumble won the toss and elected to bowl
but he was initially left rueing his decision as the left-handed Patel
tore into Bangalore’s bowling.
Patel was particularly strong on the pull and he upstaged his
experienced opening partner Hayden (26) as the pair put on 61 runs off
42 balls for the first wicket with the first-wicket fifty-run
partnership coming up off 32 balls.
Hayden fell when he lifted a slower ball from seamer Vinay
Kumar to Manish Pandey at deep midwicket and Patel followed soon after,
trapped lbw by Jacques Kallis, as Chennai slipped to 69 for two in the
ninth over.
Matters did not improve for Chennai as Suresh Raina (20) got a
leading edge to a delivery from medium-pacer Praveen Kumar with keeper
Mark Boucher snaffling the catch.
MS Dhoni played a watchful innings of 28 runs off 30 balls
before he holed out to Vinay Kumar at long-on off the bowling of
left-arm spinner Roelof van der Merwe in the 18th over before Albie
Morkel slammed the last ball of the innings for four to end unbeaten on
20 off 17 balls.
Vinay Kumar was the most successful bowler, with figures of two
for 38, while Van der Merwe returned the economical figures of one for
23 off four overs.
Teams:
Chennai Super Kings: PA Patel, ML Hayden, SK Raina, MS Dhoni (capt & wk), S Badrinath, JA Morkel, JDP Oram, SB Jakati, L Balaji, M Muralitharan, MS Gony.
Royal Challengers Bangalore: RV Uthappa, JH Kallis, R Dravid, LRPL Taylor, V Kohli, RE van der Merwe, MV Boucher (wk), P Kumar, R Vinay Kumar,
A Kumble (capt), M Pandey.