Delhi surrender to Hayden power at Kotla

Hayden butchered Delhi bowlers with a breathtaking 43-ball 93 to power CSK to a thrilling 5-wkt win.

Zeecric Bureau

New Delhi: Matthew Hayden butchered Delhi Daredevils bowlers with a breathtaking 43-ball 93 to power Chennai Super Kings to a thrilling five wicket win in their Indian Premier League match here at Ferozshah Kotla stadium on Friday. Call it the mongoose magic or his sheer skills, but Matthew Hayden is the one whom Chennai owe their Friday’s victory. Words fail to describe the enigma of Hayden’s 93-runs innings as he took Chennai Super Kings very close to their target of 186 runs, with the help of nine demolishing boundaries and seven extravagant sixes. Chennai Super Kings got a superb start to the target chase of 186 runs, thanks to Hayden. However, his opening partner, Parthiv Patel could not keep him company for long as he was run-out by AB de Villiers for just 6 runs. Later, a superb catch by Amit Mishra departed S Badrinath for 14 runs, leaving the onus again on Hayden, who also claimed his eight IPL fifty.Just when the victory seemed just a to a one-hand’s distance away from Chennai Super Kings, Dilshan broke the momentum to catch Hayden of an Amit Mishra delivery, giving Delhi a breathe of respite. A couple of overs later, the Dilshan-Mishra duo struck again to dismiss Albie Morkel for a duck, this time Mishra taking a catch of Dilshan’s delivery. However, Hayden’s dismissal did halt Chennai’s momentum, but only for a while as the other batsmen had very little job left to be do. In the end, it was the skipper Suresh Raina (49) who hit a powerful six that sealed the victory for his team. Earlier, a dazzling 74-run innings by Daredevilish Virender Sehwag and wonders by Mithun Manhas in the late-overs guided Delhi to 185/6. Captain Dinesh Karthik earlier won the toss for Delhi Daredevils and decided to make complete use of the high-scoring Kotla pitch by opting to bat first.What started as a high-volatage innings for Delhi, slopped down in between but made a super comeback in the death overs, thanks to the heart-rending 74 by Sehwag and some powerful display of shots by Manhas (32) in the late overs. Opening the innings with David Warner, Sehwag clearly intended to give nightmares to Chennai bowlers. The Nawab of Najafgarh hit a sparkling 74 with the help of ten smashing boundaries and three sky-high sixes to claim his sixth IPL fifty. Even after the dismissal of Warner (6), Sehwag continued to created havoc along with Tilakaratne Dilshan (15). After much toiling, Raina took a fantastic catch at the short mid-wicket to dismiss Dilshan of a Muttiah Muralitharan delivery. After Dilshan’s dismissal, Delhi hoped Sehwag to keep going. But a couple of balls later, Justin Kemp took a stunner of catch at the long off to end Sehwag’s scintillating innings, giving some breathing space to Chennai Super Kings. Nevertheless, the fall of wickets did not dampen the Daredevils’ hopes as skipper Dinesh Karthik (19), Rajat Bhatia (21) and Mithun Manhas played some powerful shots to help Delhi post quite a decent score of 185/6 against Chennai. Both the teams played without their original captains as Gautam Gambhir’s hamstring injury forced him out of Friday’s match and Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s elbow injury ruled him out of the IPL for two weeks. In the absence of Dhoni, Raina had been appointed the stand in skipper of the Chennai Super Kings, which made him the youngest captain ever in the history of the Indian Premier League. Delhi Daredevils: Virender Sehwag, David Warner, Tillakaratne Dilshan, AB de Villiers, Dinesh Karthik(w/c), Mithun Manhas, Rajat Bhatia, Umesh Yadav, Amit Mishra, Pradeep Sangwan, Dirk Nannes Chennai Super Kings: Matthew Hayden, Parthiv Patel(w), Murali Vijay, Suresh Raina(c), Subramaniam Badrinath, Justin Kemp, Albie Morkel, Joginder Sharma, Ravichandran Ashwin, Muttiah Muralitharan, Lakshmipathy Balaji