A quick-fire unbeaten 40-ball 65 by Russel Arnold thudded with six fours and two sixes provided defending champions Chennai Superstars a big sigh of relief as they recorded their first win in three matches to stay in the title hunt after beating Kolkata Tigers by four wickets in the Edelweiss 20s Challenge cricket championship played at the Lal Bahadur Stadium here on Monday.
In a magnificent run chase the Superstars clinched the thriller that went down to the last over. 10 runs were needed off the last over and it was Arnold's brilliance that took the Superstars to a fantastic victory. Russel Arnold was declared the man of the match for his magnificent knock.
Kolkata Tigers innings opened by Lance Klusener and Subhomoy Das turned out to be a disastrous start for the Tigers with both their openers back in the dug out before the end of the second over.
Tigers’ misery further continued when a terrible mix up saw the end of Deep Dasgupta, leaving the Tigers' innings tottering at 14/3. McMillan resurrected Tigers' innings in the next two overs as Tigers were placed at 33/3 by the end of 6th over.
Tigers were back in the match at 69/3 through halfway stage. Skipper Craig McMillan and Jhunjhunwala battled it out in the middle. McMillan was dealing in boundaries and his wonderful innings of 69 off only 41 balls, which included 3 sixes & 5 fours, came to an end with a run out due to some smart thinking by his Chennai Superstars counterpart, R Sathish.
Tigers were comfortably placed at 123/4 at the end of 15th over. His partnership with Jhunjhunwala was worth 99 runs. Jhunjhunwala batted right through the innings to make a classy fifty. A late onslaught from Rohan Gavaskar taking 18 runs off the last over from Shabbir took the Tigers innings to 185/6 in their allotted 20overs.
The Superstars started their run chase with a strong reply scoring some big hits and taking the score to 40 for no loss in the first 4 overs. Vignesh & Harvey carried on their good form.
Vignesh's onslaught came to an end when a lovely slower one from Hayward castled him. Harvey was attacking right to the Tigers setting the park on fire with some lusty hits, till the young Pritam Das produced a peach of a delivery to uproot his off stump for a well-made 49 in the 10th over.
At the end of the 10th over the match was a fascinating contest with the Superstars placed at 98/2. The 15th over had the Superstars placed at 134/4 needing 52 runs off 30 balls at 10.4 runs per over & Arnold holding the key for Chennai Superstars' fortunes and he did it in style.
Brief Scores: Kolkata Tigers: 185/6 in 20overs(C McMillan 69, Jhunjhunwala 50, R Gavaskar 23, Vignesh 2/18) lost by 4 wickets to Chennai Superstars: 187/6 (R Arnold 66, I Harvey 49, N Hayward 2/31).
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