IPL: Bangalore Secure Final Place By Beating Chennai

IPL: Bangalore Secure Final Place By Beating Chennai

Jacques Kallis (left) celebrates the wicket of Parthiv Patel.

©REUTERS/Mike Hutchings (SOUTH AFRICA SPORT CRICKET) Picture Supplied by Action Images

Royal Challengers Bangalore 149-4 (Pandey 48, Dravid 44) beat
Chennai Super Kings 146-5 (Patel 36, Vinay Kumar 2-38) by six wickets
Indian Premier League semi-final, Johannesburg

The Royal Challengers Bangalore secured an Indian Premier League final spot against the Deccan Chargers by beating the Chennai Super Kings by six wickets in the second semi-final in Johannesburg.

Manish Pandey, fresh from scoring a century against the Chargers two days ago, starred again with a fluent 48 as the Challengers overcame Chennai's score of 146 for five with seven balls to go.

147 never looked like quite enough but Chennai never stopped working hard, Muralitharan bowling his four overs for 15 runs but they were undone by some sloppy fielding and a failure to kick on from a good start.

Matthew Hayden (26) and Parthiv Patel (36) put on 61 in seven overs but their innings stuttered, Mahendra Singh Dhoni making a painstaking 28 which didn't contain a single boundary.

Suresh Raina made 20, as did Albie Morkel while Jacob Oram made nine with the whole innings contained just four sixes in all. Pick of the bowlers was Vinay Kumar, who came back strongly to pick up two for 38 after he was savaged by Hayden and Patel early on while Praveen Kumar, Jacques Kallis and Roelof van der Merwe took a wicket apiece.

Pandey then threatened to end the match before the strategy break, frustrating Dhoni by placing some crisp drives between fielders and going over the top to great effect. Already he is beginning to earn comparisons with a young Sachin Tendulkar and it is easy to see why, the 19-year-old timing the ball so beautifully and appearing to have so much time at the crease.

He stroked seven fours in 35 balls to prove his century was no fluke, only missing out on a half-century when a Shadeb Jakati delivery kept low and had him bowled.

Jacques Kallis (9) and van der Merwe (2) were dismissed cheaply before the experience of Dravid, who made 44 in 39 balls, and the bravado of Virat Kohli, unbeaten on 24, and Ross Taylor, not out on 17 saw them home.

Murali's economical bowling had ensured that the Challengers still needed more runs than balls remaining inside five overs to go, but that was changed when Taylor hammered Raina for two massives sixes and when Kohli ran down the track and dished out the same treatment to the Sri Lanka, it really was game over.

Jacob Oram was called on to bowl the 19th over with 12 needed, and he didn't get a chance to complete it, a high full toss no ball being hit for six by Taylor, who whipped the winning runs through midwicket to seal an incredible turnaround, for last year the Chargers and the Challengers were the two bottom sides in the IPL.

© Cricket World 2009

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