Kamal Ghorui
CHENNAI: Noor Ahmad was struggling for rhythm in recent times but Chennai Super Kings never lost faith in him. They persisted with playing the left-arm wrist-spinner and the Afghan star delivered on Tuesday at the MA Chidambaram Stadium against a shambolic Kolkata Knight Riders to give CSK their second win on the bounce. Chasing 193 for victory on a pitch where the ball was stopping just a bit, the game was in the balance with KKR skipper Ajinkya Rahane looking to dig in and take the game deep.Rahane (28 off 22 balls) is a fine player of spin, but he couldn’t clear the infield and was caught at mid-off that sparked the collapse. Noor (3-21) removed an off-colour Cameron Green, who didn’t know which way the ball was turning, the next ball. And in his next over, when Noor got ‘finisher’ Rinku Singh caught at the deep, the game was well and truly over. Rovman Powell and Ramandeep Singh tried a bit towards the end, but it was only about making the margin of defeat, 32 in this case, look slightly respectable.While Noor’s spell played a significant part, CSK won both the Powerplays that set up the game for them. While batting, Sanju Samson and No. 3 Ayush Mhatre helped CSK reach 722, which went a long way in helping them reach 192-5. As Sanju (48 off 32 balls) hit a hat-trick of boundaries off medium-pacer Vaibhav Arora, Ayush’s 17-ball 38 was the stand-out batting show of the day.The Mumbai youngster took a heavy toll of Green hitting him for 21 runs in an over and then struck Vaibhav for three consecutive boundaries. He was dismissed by Vaibhav, but he had already done the job.While bowling too, the CSK pacers got it right in the Powerplay as KKR completely messed it up. Khaleel Ahmed and Anshul Kamboj got the ball swinging a bit with the new opening duo of Sunil Narine and Finn Allen struggling to get going. Allen fell to Kamboj while Narine was dismissed by Khaleel, as 36-2 in six overs put immense pressure on KKR.Rahane tried to break free for a bit, taking rookie medium-pacer Gurjapneet Singh for 19 in one over, but that was merely a flash in the pan.
CSK vs KKR
