KKR bowlers deliver goods

Defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders produced a disciplined bowling performance to restrict two-time winners Chennai Super Kings for a modest 134/6 in the IPL-8 on Tuesday. At the time of going to the press, KKR were 95/5 at the end of the 16th over with  Ryan ten Doeschate (7*) and Andre Russell (2*) at the crease.

Andre Russell (2/26) and Piyush Chawla (2/26) were the peak of the bowlers with two wickets each, while Brad Hogg (1/18) snapped one after Kolkata skipper Gautam Gambhir won the toss and elected to field. Dwayne Smith (25) and Brendon McCullum (19) gave Chennai a blistering start as they put KKR attack to the sword and picked up fours and sixes at will to amass 38 in four overs.

Gambhir then introduced Chawla into the attack and the leg-spinner dismissed McCullum after trapping him in front of the wicket. The New Zealand skipper blasted three fours and one six in his 14-ball innings. New batsman Raina, however, seemed unfazed as he sent Chawla over the fence with a powerful slog sweep in the square leg region in the last ball of the over.

Spinner Brad Hogg and pacer Andre Russell then checked the run flow with some good bowling as Smith and Raina looked for singles and twos. In the ninth over, Smith was dismissed by a brilliant throw by Yusuf Pathan who hit the stumps after the batsmen were trying to steal a quick single. The West Indies batsman hit three boundaries and a six in his 19-ball stay. In the next over, Russell sent Raina packing when he induced an edge from the batsman with wicketkeeper Robin Uthappa taking the catch as Chennai were reduced to 67 for 3.

Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni (3) also didn’t stay long as his six-ball stay was cut short by a bouncer from Russell as Chennai slumped to 81 for 4. Chawla then returned to dismiss West Indies allrounder Dwayne Bravo (5), who looking for a big shot ended up giving a simple catch to S Yadav at long-off. Newman Faf du Plessis (29 not out) then brought up the hundred for Chennai with a couple of runs at deep square leg. With wickets tumbling, du Plessis and Ravindra Jadeja (15) needed some big hits but the duo failed to raise the runrate with Hogg cleaning up the latter with a quicker ball in the 19th over.