Chennai Super Kings roared into joint lead of the IPL table after an emphatic victory over a hapless Kings XI Punjab, who lost the toss, made a string of errors in the field and then batted poorly to come off profoundly second best in a 97-run defeat.
Chennai hit the third-highest total of this year’s IPL so far. Dwayne Smith got their innings under way in blistering, vicious style, scoring a quickfire 26 off 12 balls, including three fours and two sixes, before getting out off the 13th. Anureet Singh received the credit but the wicket owed more to luck, Smith mistiming an attempted pull and the ball missing the bat and hitting him in the chest, bouncing into his arm, and deflecting back into the stumps.
His fellow opener Brendan McCullum stayed longer, hitting 66 from 44 balls before finally holing out to David Miller at long off. He was dropped by Mitchell Johnson in the 20s, the first of two ugly drops by the Australian bowler, who followed up by letting Raina’s miscontrolled thump to midwicket slip through his hands soon afterwards. Johnson’s bowling was only marginally more successful than his catching, his four overs yielding 40 runs and no wickets.
There were other examples of poor fielding, with Shaun Marsh notably flopping over the ball at backward point when he might have stopped it with his hand, at the cost of four runs, as Chennai joyfully thundered their way towards, but just short of, 200 – Sandeep Sharma’s final over, which cost just four singles, was a rare moment of excellence from Kings XI.
The reply started badly and got worse from there. Vihrender Sehwag lasted three balls before sending the easiest of catches looping down the throat of Faf du Plessis at mid-off.
Wickets fell regularly thereafter, with Murali Vijay the one faint glimmer of light, with a 32-ball 34 ending when he flicked the ball to the dancing Dwayne Bravo at midwicket.
Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin combined with a destructive spell of spin in the middle of the Kings XI innings, their eight overs combined bringing five wickets for 36 runs. Chennai’s superiority was emphasised by an excellent catch by Raina at leg slip off Jadeja to dismiss Shaun Marsh for three, his side as sure in the field as their opponents had been uncertain.
