Outstanding Raina guides Chennai to victory

Centurion, April 30: Cometh the hour, cometh Raina. Riding high on his blistering knock of 98, Chennai Super Kings thumped defending champions Rajasthan Royals by 38 runs at Super Sport Park here on Thursday.

A blistering innings by Suresh Raina saw Chennai Super Kings shrug off their initial stammer and post a challenging total of 165 runs for the current champions, chasing which Rajasthan were skittled out for 126/9 in just 19.3 overs as Kamran Khan decided not to put on the batting gloves.

In what could be termed as one of the finest innings of IPL season two along with AB de Villiers` magnificent century couple of days back, Raina delighted the crowd and millions watching across the globe with some breathtaking and audacious strokes over covers and all around the park. Raina’s innings of 98 comprised of 5 huge sixes and 10 fours. The knock also became the highest total by an Indian in the IPL-II.

Raina’s onslaught in the game at one stage forced Kamran Khan, Warne’s find of the season, going for 19 runs in four balls. Khan then pulled out of the park with a twisted ankle.

Earlier in the match, Chennai, who were off to a horrendous start, brought themselves back into the match with over fifty runs partnership for the third wicket between Raina and Badrinath. Put into bat, Chennai Super Kings were struggling to get on with the game after losing two big wickets of Mathew Hayden (1) and Parthiv Patel (3) cheaply against some disciplined bowling by Yusuf Pathan.

Yusuf Pathan, the constructor-in-chief for Rajasthan Royals` scintillating victories until now, switched his role into destructor-in-chief as he got rid of the two Chennai openers. But since then the night belonged to Suresh Raina and Chennai Super Kings.

Chasing a challenging total of 165 runs for victory, Royals struggled to keep pace with the required run rate. Barring Ravinder Jadeja, who scored 37 off 33 balls, raised hopes for Rajasthan, all other failed to take off.

Rob Quiney (28), Graeme Smith (2), Swapnil Asnodkar(10) Yusuf Pathan (20) Dimitri Mascarenhas (8), Warne (3), Munaf Patel (0) failed to rise to the occasion as the defending champions crumbled to their first defeat against Chennai Super Kings in IPL-II.