Chennai: Thanks to the classy century by Murali Vijay, Chennai Super Kings handed over the worst defeat of IPL-5 to Delhi Daredevils when they beat Sehwag & Co. by 86 runs in the IPL Playoffs for the final spot here on Friday. It started with the first ball, when Murali Vijay drove Sunny Gupta to the long-off boundary and never stopped thereafter. Praising Vijay’s knock, Delhi skipper Virender Sehwag said that he took the game away from Delhi at the very start, while Captain Cool MS Dhoni too was lavish in glorifying his man-of-the-day.

“The way Vijay played he took the game away from us. Then they have a good batting line-up and they did the rest of the damage,” said Sehwag, adding that they for sure missed the services of their best bowler Morne Morkel. “Yes we missed Morne. Unfortunately Irfan Pathan got injured and we had to maintain the balance. It was a good pitch and score of 180 was chaseable. But they got 40 more runs and it was always was going to be difficult to chase,” said the losing captain¸ adding that there were a lot of positives from this season. “We never expected to end number one after the league. Thanks to the owners for backing us. We will try and come back hard in the Champions League.”


Meanwhile Dhoni, who has led Chennai four time times of five into the IPL final, said, “Vijay and Hussey gave us a good start. It was also good to see Raina hitting a few balls away and in the end it was closed off well by Bravo. Personally, I thought Delhi Daredevils had had line-up to do it but it was not going to be easy.”


Murali, man-of-the-match, said that he would first of all like to need thank Bharath Arun and Gurunath, the owner, who believed and supported him. “Without them it wouldn't have been possible. I know the Chennai wicket and I decided to hit straighter. After six overs, I thought the wicket was playing slower. So I decided one of us had bat through the end and I was lucky to come through. I am happy to be a part of this unit and learning from them.”