It was the first time in IPL-5 that both the teams breached the 200-run mark. In a rare display of power hitting, Chennai Super Kings clinched a last ball thriller against Royal Challengers Bangalore --  thanks to some nasty hitting by Albie Morkel towards the end. Chennai, who were set a target of 206, started off well but fell short of the required run rate. With 43 runs required in last two overs, Chennai were nowhere in picture. But some great batting by Morkel handed Chennai the most unlikely win.

Here are some hits and flops of the match:

Hits and flops of Chennai

Hits

F du Plessis: He was the man who played a major role in the victory. Plessis always kept in mind the cliff they had to climb and kept the run rate in check. Ideally a team would want a start like that when they are pursuing such a big target. He scored at a brisk rate and scored 71 off 46 balls which included five fours and four sixes. He was also named man-of-the-match.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni: The skipper lived up to his reputation of recovering the team from dire straits. He did promote himself up the batting order and decided to take the fight head on. His innings 41 runs of 24 balls, which consisted of two fours and a six played a significant role in their run chase.

Albie Morkel: Morkel is the man who scripted the victory for CSK. He came at a time when Chennai required 43 runs in last two overs. Bangalore had somewhat an easy task at hand, but it didn’t seem so after the first delivery of the 19th over was bowled. Morkel launched an attack on Virat Kohli and scored 28 runs off the penultimate over. Morkel stayed on the crease for seven deliveries and scored 28 runs, which included two fours and three sixes.

Doug Bollinger: Bollinger played a great role in stopping Bangalore's run riot. He was given the responsibility of bowling the last over. Bangalore, who had already scored 198, looked as if they would go well beyond 215 run marks with Kohli still at the crease. But Bollinger bowled cleverly and his last over yielded four wickets. He gave away just seven runs, which proved to be of great help eventually. He finished with figures of 24/3 in three overs

Flops

There were some bad performances here and there, but it did not have much of impact on the match to be on this list.

Hits and flops of Royal Challengers Bangalore

Mayank Aggarwal: He was the man who started the proceeding for Bangalore. As a matter of fact, he was batting and hitting the ball so well that the big man Chris Gayle started playing second fiddle to him and did not score much till Mayank was out there in the middle. Mayank had a great match and after some bad performances, he starred with the bat. He scored 45 from 26 balls which included five fours and three sixes.

Chris Gayle: Chris Gayle started showing his batting only after Aggarwal departed, because till then he was just playing a second fiddle to Aggarwal. But just after the first wicket, Gayle launched his attack and quickly raced to 68 of 35 balls. His knock consisted of two fours and six monstrous sixes including a 103 m blow.

Virat Kohli: India newest sensation could not do justice to his batting on earlier occasions. But he sprang into action yesterday and played a breezy knock of 57 runs of 46 deliveries, including five fours and two sixes which helped his team to become the first side in IPL V to breach the 200 runs marks.

Muttiah Muralidharan: He is on a roll. After a good performance in the last match, he once again showed he is not to be written off do soon. On a day when bowlers were giving away runs generously, he held on to it and gave away just 21 runs in four overs picking up three wickets.

Flops

Vettori’s captaincy: Vettori who had been a great captain for New Zealand and Bangalore, made a blunder yesterday by giving Kohli the penultimate over to bowl. Kohli is not a regular bowler and not much can be expected from him when it comes to bowling. Vettori ran out of options but then he should have planned it accordingly. That one move cost RCB the match. Kolhi went for 28 runs in that over, which took the match way from them.

Vinay Kumar: He could not deliver when it was most required of him. He was given the responsibility to bowl the last over but his wayward bowling saw Dwayne Bravo make a feast out of him and take CSK to victory.

By Samikshan Dutta Choudhury
Indian Sports News