Gaurav Live

The second semifinal of the DLF IPL 2009 played today at Wanderers Park, Johannesburg expected a good battle as Chennai Super Kings took on the Royal Challengers Bangalore. In the end, Chennai Super Kings were cleverly outwitted by Royal Challengers Bangalore with 6 wickets in hand & 7 balls to spare. With this win, Royal Challengers Bangalore enter the finals of the DLF IPL 2009 & will battle with the Deccan Chargers tomorrow for the precious DLF IPL 2009 Trophy.

Bangalore won the toss & selected to field first. Pathiv Patel & Mathew Hayden opened the batting for Chennai Super Kings. Both the openers looked in good form & knocked runs at a pace faster than light. Thus Chennai Super Kings got to 50 in just 32 balls. Later in the sixth over, Mathew Hayden (26 off 19 deliveries) got caught out off Vinay Kumar. After a while, Parthiv Patel lost his way as he fell victim to Jacques Kallis getting trapped before the wickets. It was time to steady the Chennai ship after losing two quick wickets & that’s what M.S Dhoni & Suresh Raina did. Though they succeeded in repairing the early damage but the side-effects came in the form of a slow scoring rate. As the innings was nearing its end Suresh Raina fell to Vinay Kumar & was back scoring just 20 runs. Suresh Raina will surely be disappointed as his team needed him to fire in this crucial semifinal. The cool customer – M.S Dhoni (28 off 30 deliveries) felled in the 18^th over as he went to hit a big shot off Van der Merve. Jacob Oram & Albie Morkel continued but were unable to get the big shots going. Jacob Oram was eventually caught in the final over of the match by Robin Uthappa & Chennai Super Kings just managed to get to 146/5. A decent score again considering the batting strength of Chennai but in T20 you never know till you bowl the last ball. We have seen many times teams scoring a low total & in the end emerging victorious.

Royal Challengers Bangalore needed to go at a modest 7.3 R.P.O to get to this moderate target. They began their run chase with Jacques Kallis & Manish Pandey. Jacques Kallis did not last long & perished in the very second over scoring just 9 odd runs. Manish Pandey began Bangalore run chase with a high note as he showed his aggressive intent right from the start. His knock of 48 helped Bangalore as the run rate never seemed to be climbing up. Van der Merwe failed to make any signifcant impact & was out sfor two. Meanwhile, the Indian Wall as he is referred Rahul Dravid came to the party tonight. He mixed caution with aggression & made a valuable 44 off 39 balls which kept Bangalore with a good chance of disappointing the men in yellow. The Chennai bowlers lacked lustre today & to add to their worries even there were fielding mishaps. Only Muttiah Muralitharan kept things tight but he did not got the expected support from his fellow mates. The final runs were knocked off comfortably by Virat Kohli (24 off 17 deliveries) & Ross Taylor (17 off 12 deliveries) as Royal Challengers Bangalore comfortably cruised home. As expected, Manish Pandey was Man-of-Match for his valuable knock early in the innings, which set the stage for a comortable victory.

In the end, Chennai Super Kings would be utterly disappointed as they failed to shine in any of the department tomorrow. Dhoni’s face at the end showed it all as the shoulder’s of his team-mates drooped & it felt as they were just waiting for the match to get over & go home. On the other hand, Anil Kumble would be a proud man as he once again brought his experience to his aid. From seventh position last year to finals this year, nobody would have dreamed about it. With this we have the Grand IPL 2009 Finale tomorrow in which Deccan Chargers will take over Royal Challengers Bangalore. It will be a perfect sunday bash as both the teams have risen from ashes to glory. So on which side are you putting your money in the final – Is it the Deadly Deccan Chargers or the Radical Royal Challengers Bangalore? It’s going to be a cracker of a final. Get done with your appointments early in the day & sit back to enjoy the mega final of the DLF IPL 2009.

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