CHENAI SUPER KINGS OUTSMARTED

Deccan's bowlers exploited the helpful conditions early on to slice through the Chennai top order. Just as in the previous two matches, the batsmen floundered against the moving ball in the first over. Parthiv Patel troubles with the bat continued as he survived a close lbw call first ball, was dropped by the bowler P Vijaykumar off the fourth, before RP Singh took a fine running catch to dismiss him sixth ball. S Anirudh, son of former India batsman Kris Srikkanth, fell soon after, miscuing a pull off RP.Stephen Fleming was just about getting into his groove when his rasping square drive off his former New Zealand team-mate Scott Styris was smartly held by Rohit Sharma at cover point. And when S Badrinath was spectacularly held at backward point by Herschelle Gibbs in the seventh over, Chennai were in shambles at 43 .Suresh Raina, who was playing fluently when the wickets were tumbling around him, and Mahendra Singh Dhoni, were again called on rebuild the innings. There was some tidy, but not threatening bowling from Sanjay Bangar and left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha as Chennai progressed to 82 without any hiccups. Raina unleashed some lovely straight drives while Dhoni sensibly cut out the risks and kept the ball on the ground.However, both Raina and Dhoni were dismissed in the space of nine balls and Chennai were in danger of being bowled out for the second game in succession. Raina once again failed to capitalise on his start, spooning a wide full toss from Bangar to cover. Dhoni had been tied down by Ojha and perished when an attempted pull took a bottom edge and ballooned off his pads to Shahid Afridi at point.As in his previous two knocks, Albie Morkel needed to haul his team out of the hole created by top order. The crowd had been chanting for a six and there had been none till the 17th over, when a monstrous hit from Morkel sent the ball out of the stadium. Four more sixes came off the last four overs, including two in the final one by Manpreet Gony, as Chennai pushed their score to 145.