Kings XI vs CSK, 16th match at Chennai, IPL, Mar 21 2010 - Ball by Ball Commentary

Righteeyo folks! Each team will pick three batsmen, and get to face six balls, from the nominated bowler. They can lose two wickets at the most, and the team that scores more takes all! Chennai will take strike first. Can they pull this off? Will it be vendakka sambhar or dal tadka tonight?!

Right, the names are out. Murali to bowl, Hayden, Morkel and Raina to bat for Chennai. Theron to bowl the first super over for Punjab, what an IPL debut for him!

Punjab have the momentum and will come out swinging hard, all guns blazing!

Chennai's Super Over

Morkel to face, Hayden is with him. Raina is waiting in the wings.

First ball: Length ball on leg and middle, Morkel looks for a big swing to the leg side, and top edges to third man for one. Over to Haydos!

Second ball: Timber!!! Hayden's gone for a blob in the super over! Theron keeps it straight, slower ball, Hayden swings across the line misses and the stumps are down! This is huge. Four balls to go, Raina will come out to face. They can't afford to lose another. CSK 1/1

Third ball: Smashes the length ball with all his might, and thankfully does not carry to Pathan on the sweeper cover fence. On the bounce and they run back for 2. CSK 3/1

Fourth ball: Captain cool Raina, take a bow! Super swing, length ball again, slower ball, and Raina cashes in swings it mighty high over midwicket. Six! CSK 9/1

Fifth ball: Chennai is bowled out! Raina looks for the good old heave ho over midwicket again, and gets a top-edge high over cover's head. Mahela settles under it and takes it! He's pumped up! Punjab on top. CSK - 9 for 2. Ten to win for Punjab!

Yuvraj, Irfan and Mahela have been nominated to find the 10 runs in 6 balls from the hands of the greatest offspinner of alltime.

Murali, the little wizard has the ball. There are four flood lights, and two of Murali's eyes, lighting up Chepauk! This is truly electric, Raina is chatting with Hayden. There is sambhar, there is dal and there is lots of adrenaline!

Punjab's Super Over

Mahela to face Murali first up. Yuvraj is at the bowler's end.

First ball: SIX!!! Mahela you beauty, picked the offie on a length and carted it high over long on! Punjab all the way KXIP 6/0

Second ball: Murali hits back with a vengeance and Mahela is gone! Same ball, same shot, not enough elevation, goes down Murali Vijay's throat at long on! KXIP have only one wicket left and need 4 off 4! Yuvi has strike.KXIP 6/1

Third ball: Swing and a miss! Turns the offie from leg across Yuvi and he misses the slog sweep. Dot! KXIP 6/1

Fourth ball: What a time to pull out the reverse sweep, and what brilliant execution!!! Yuvraj lets out a roar!! Same line and length, turning across Yuvraj, but he looked to go the other way, and got good contact on that one, past short third man and into the boundary!!! Punjab have won!!!

It was ALL stacked up against Punjab here. They have never beaten Chennai before, and they were yet to get a win this season. They mustered an average score, and looked out of it when Parthiv Patel and Matthew Hayden were going great guns. But they held their nerve, Rusty Theron bowled like a champ, and the rest of the side responded. A Dhoni-less, Kemp-less Chennai middle order, stuttered and stumbled, pressure did the rest and scores were tied after 20 overs.

Chennai's crowd looked up to Morkel, after all Albie, there for you, alalalalong, but it was not to be today. He got two, Haydos got a blob, and Raina got a couple away. Chennai finished with nine on the board in the super over, it was not really huge, and Mahela smashed Murali for six first ball to give his side the advantage, but it was heart-break next ball when Murali hit back. It was all down to Yuvraj, facing his old nemesis Murali, the man who sorted him out and exposed his frailty against spin, back in 2001. But today, Yuvraj held his nerve and pulled off the most delicious of reverse sweeps to the boundary. Poetic justice that the ending came through a delicate little shot, albeit unorthodox, as opposed to an almighty thick-edged hoick across the line. Well done Punjab! The crowd at Chepauk will be feeling disappointed, but they will remember this classic for a long time. And well, dal tadka is not so bad for a change, guys!

Clarification: Umpire harper wrongly adjudged the six over fine leg as four, and that became the official score. It was later corrected though and Chennai got those two extra runs.

Hang on for the presentation.

Raina: "Very good game of cricket. We bowled really well, that total was easily chaseable. Hopefully we'll do better in the next game. Parthiv played really well, but may be he should have stayed on till it was closer. Albie and Murali are bowling well, which is good for us. Kemp is feeling better, he will come back for the next game"

Sangakkara: "Very happy, with Rusty, Irfan Shalabh and the spinners. The wicket was not that easy to score runs. We are always in with a chance when we take wickets and we did that today. We know we did not bat to our potential, and there is hard work ahead, but after three losses today, we will savour this. (Smiles)."

Man of the Match is Rusty Theron on his IPL debut. "Jet-lag is not too bad. Did not expect to come out today and experience all this. It's been an unbelievable experience to be a part of this. Essentially I try to keep it simple at the death. If you get hit, then so be it." Good on ya Rusty!

Preity Zinta lets out a coo of joy and Yuvraj finally seems to have found his range, form and voice. Great win for Punjab, hope they go on to do big things from now on in this IPL.

That concludes it from us for today. Apologies once again for the technical issues earlier in the day. Kudos to our tech team for spotting the bug and setting it right in time for this classic!

On behalf of scorer Venkat Raghav and the rest of the team at Cricinfo, this is Nitin Sundar signing off. Do check out Sidharth Monga's Bulletin in a bit if you missed any of the action. Cheers and good night!

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Three required off three. How crucial will those two over throws prove? Chepauk is getting behind their side! Tony Greig would have said, "It's all happening here in Chinnnaaaaaaiii!"

Ashwin walks out. Kemp is injured and hence he's not come out yet. This could make all the difference.