A thrilling finish in Chennai saw the home side prevail – but only just. With Delhi needing a six from the final delivery, the Super Kings’ seamer Dwayne Bravo gave an exhausted Albie Morkel the width he required to flay over mid-off only for the ball to bounce just inside the rope, giving Chennai a one-run win.
On winning the toss, JP Duminy, the Delhi captain, elected to field – despite a belter of a pitch and an opposition boasting the IPL’s most intimidating batting line-up. It proved to be an excellent decision. Though Chennai – and Dwayne Smith in particular – started brilliantly, a regular loss of wickets as they tried to post a monster total left them grateful to finish on 150 for seven.
This was due in significant part to the bowling of Delhi’s Nathan Coulter-Nile, who dismissed Brendon McCullum and Suresh Raina in his first spell, and returned to dismiss MS Dhoni in the penultimate over, after the Indian veteran consecutively top-edged and bottom-handed shots for six. Also excellent with the ball in hand for Delhi were Imran Tahir and Amit Mishra.
And yet Chennai prevailed. An excellent all-round display of both bowling and fielding was aided by the curious decision to send in Yuvraj Singh and Duminy – Delhi’s best and most experienced batsmen – at No6 and No7 respectively. By this time, under mounting pressure, they had no time to build an innings; both were removed cheaply, and Morkel, despite a valiant knock of 73 not out off 55 balls, could not quite get them over the line.
