Nerveless Southee seals victory for Chennai

Tim Southee didn't know he would be playing the IPL till ten days ago, when Chennai Super Kings signed him up after Ben Hilfenhaus was ruled out of the tournament due to an injury. Southee had impressed in the World Cup, making it into the ICC's team of the tournament on the back of a superb performance with 18 wickets in eight matches.

His first over in the IPL was a quiet one, giving away just four runs to the Kolkata Knight Riders' openers. In his next, he erred and Jacques Kallis capitalised. He was too wide once, too short once and too straight once - each time Kallis dispatched him for boundaries. A first spell of 2-0-18-0 in a low-scoring match wasn't the greatest of starts.

Southee returned to swing the match Chennai's way at the death, though. With Kolkata needing 33 off three overs, Southee was handed the ball and given the responsibility of bowling two of those death overs. He began with two dot balls, and then conceded two singles. That ratcheted up the pressure, but there was a streaky boundary off the next. Still, a single off the final ball made it just seven off the over and Kolkata looked dead and buried.

An expensive over from Suraj Randiv brought them back in it, and Southee had the job of keeping Kolkata to less than eight in the final over. The tension-filled final over started with an outrageous stroke from Shukla, paddling a full ball from way outside off to square leg for a couple. That left two new batsmen at the crease, and five wanted off three. Iqbal Abdulla slapped one through covers for two, before Southee started firing in inch-perfect yorkers. It came down to four off the final delivery; after prolonged discussions with the captain, Southee sent an into-the-legs yorker which was too good for Rajat Bhatia. Only a single resulted and Dhoni's charmed run as captain continued.