Chennai Super Kings were largely untroubled in their final match as they
coasted to a four-wicket victory that left Yorkshire winless in the
Champions League T20 proper. S Badrinath, often overlooked in a batting
line-up of star names, showed once again how important he is to the
Super Kings' middle order, holding together the innings after three of
his top-order colleagues holed out attempting to hammer the ball out of
Kingsmead.
The Yorkshire top-order, too, came up short once again, as they have
invariably in this tournament, before Gary Ballance smashed his second
half-century of the CLT20 to lead them to a respectable 140.
None of the regular top three of Andrew Gale, Adam Lyth and Joe Root
have reached 30 in this competition, which repeatedly left Yorkshire
three down early. It was no different today as Gale chipped a catch to
cover after a brisk 23, before Lyth was dismissed in a carbon-copy
manner and Root gloved a leg-side ball to the keeper to leave Yorkshire
at 43 for 3.
The Yorkshire middle-order had been boosted by the return of David
Miller, back after domestic duties with the Dolphins, and he helped the
team recover through a big stand with Ballance. They took their time to
get going - overs 6-10 only yielded 21 runs - but the introduction of
Super Kings' second-string bowlers helped boost the rate. Suresh Raina,
captaining in place of MS Dhoni, was swept for 12 in his first over, and
Ravindra Jadeja was thumped for two sixes in his first.
Dhoni, playing his first Super Kings match as non-captain, also didn't
keep wickets, bowling some seam-up instead. He bowled a couple of
wayward overs, experimenting with back-of-the-hand slower balls, and was
whipped by Ballance for two consecutive sixes as Yorkshire's run-rate
finally hit seven.
Doug Bollinger, who was the best of the Super Kings' bowlers, returned
to end the stand by dismissing Miller, but Ballance whacked a couple of
sixes off Ben Hilfenhaus in the penultimate over to lift Yorkshire
towards 140.
Super Kings lost both M Vijay and Faf du Plessis in the Powerplay, but
Badrinath was involved in two solid partnerships to put them on course
for a second consolation victory. First, he paired up with Raina,
compiling 48 to stabilise the innings, and then added 43 with Dhoni as
Yorkshire struggled to build pressure on the Super Kings.
Badrinath missed out on a half-century after he was bowled attempting a
scoop, and Iain Wardlaw added a second scalp when Dhoni missed an
attempted helicopter shot, though those two wickets were too late to
have an impact against a line-up with plenty of depth.
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