Chennai, Apr 26: Pacer Harshal Patel made the best use of a sluggish Chepauk surface as Sunrisers Hyderabad put Chennai Super Kings on the brink of exit door by winning the battle of back-benchers by five wickets in the Indian Premier League here on Friday.
Harshal, a fine exponent of the slower delivery and the knuckle ball, took 4 for 28 as Chennai Super Kings endured another poor outing with the bat and were bowled out for 154 in 19.5 overs.
Despite getting assistance from the dew-laden surface, SRH made a heavy weather of the chase before finally knocking off the target in 18.4 overs.
Ishan Kishan (44 off 34 balls), after his brain fade against Mumbai Indians, played a responsible hand at the top before Kamindu Mendis (32 not out off 22 balls) and Nitish Kumar Reddy (19 not out off 13 balls) got the visitors two points with a 49-run stand. This was SRH’s first win at this venue.
With six points from nine games, SRH’s play-off qualification hangs by a thread as they need to win all their five matches and that too by a fair margin to end on 16 points, which is a safe cut-off.
SRH leapfrogged Rajasthan Royals to the eighth position in the 10-team table as Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s men remain at the bottom of the heap.
For CSK, their seventh defeat in nine games practically ends their hopes as they now need wins in the next five games and hope that the play-off cut-off remains at 14 for the fourth-placed team.
The confidence of CSK batters has been shot to pieces and the lack of a collective effort from their bowlers only compounded the problems.
Harshal, who cleverly used the change of pace, was complemented well by skipper Pat Cummins (2/21), ambidextrous spinner Kamindu (1/26), veterans Mohammed Shami (1/28) and Jaydev Unadkat (2/21).
Dewald Brevis (42 off 25) was the top scorer while Deepak Hooda (22 off 21) played some lofty shots towards the end to take CSK past 150-run mark.
Sent into bat, CSK witnessed a horrendous start as they lost Shaik Rasheed in the first ball off Mohammed Shami, caught by Abhishek Sharma at first slip. It was a perfect Test match delivery, pitched on length outside off and shaped away with the batter just poking at it.
Young Ayush Mhatre (30 off 19) was, however, going great guns, picking up boundaries at will with his attacking batting against Shami, SRH skipper Cummins and Unadkat.
Sam Curran was the next CSK batter to depart as he top-edged a Harshal delivery to Aniket Verma at deep midwicket.
There was more agony in store for CSK as a well-set Mhatre was caught by Ishan Kishan off Cummins in the sixth over as the hosts managed only 50 for 3 in the power play.
In the seventh over, Harshal dropped a dolly off Zeeshan Ansari to hand Ravindra Jadeja (21) a life and the veteran India batter utilised it to strike Ansari over long-on for a huge six.
But Jadeja’s stay was cut short by Kamindu Mendis, who cleaned up his stumps soon.
At the halfway mark, CSK reached 76 for four in 10 overs.
But Shivam Dube (12 off 9) and Brevis (42 off 25) had other plans as they took the attack to the opposition with their power hitting.
While Dube hit Shami for two exquisite boundaries through covers in the 11th over, Brevis clobbered Mendis for three maximums in the next over to keep up the run rate.
Drafted into the side, Brevis was in destructive mood as he clobbered Harshal for another six before being brilliantly caught by a diving Kamindu at long off.
However, CSK lost wickets in a heap as Dube was holed out by Abhishek at long-on off Unadkat in the next over.
In came Dhoni in his 400th T20 match, but he too failed to fire as the veteran batter slashed a Harshal delivery straight to Abhishek at point.
Towards the end, Hooda tried his best to lift the innings and managed to take CSK past 150. (PTI)
