[caption id="attachment_181149" align="aligncenter" width="787"]
Pune: Chennai Super Kings' Ravindra Jadeja with his teammates celebrates the dismissal of Royal Challengers Bangalore's captain Virat Kohli during an IPL cricket match in Pune on Saturday. PTI Photo / BCCI (PTI5_5_2018_000118B)[/caption]
Pune, May 5 (IANS): Chennai Super Kings (CSK) made a heavy weather of a small total before captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni did his famous finishing act to beat Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) by six wickets and virtually seal their place in the Indian Premier League (IPL) play-offs here on Saturday, needing just one more win in five matches.
RCB, on the other hand, are virtually out of the race for the play-offs. They are currently on six points and have to win all their five remaining matches, which is a big ask for the off-colour unit.
The Chennai are sitting pretty on top of the table with 14 points from 10 matches. They have won seven of those matches while losing three.
The Chennai team, which has a reputed batting line-up, were expected to acomplish the job quite easily. But the team put themselves under pressure in the slog overs before skipper Dhoni smashed three sixes off RCB's star spinner Yuzvendra Chahal to take his side across the line in the 18th over.
Having elected to field first on winning the toss, CSK restricted the visitors to 127/9 in their 20 overs.
CSK were boosted by an excellent display by the hitherto off-colour Ravindra Jadeja who roared back to form with figures of 3/18.
Ambati Rayudu laid the foundation of a successful chase with 32 runs off 25 balls after the other opener Shane Watson was bowled by Umesh Yadav in the third over.
Rayudu and Suresh Raina tried to bring the chase back on track with a 44-run stand before Yadav struck again, removing Raina in the ninth over.
Rayudu fell a couple of overs later when he attempted an expansive shot off Murugan Ashwin, only to hand an easy top edge to Mohammed Siraj at short third man. Colin de Grandhomme then removed Dhruv Shorey, who made his IPL debut, in the next over to put the hosts under pressure.
However, Dhoni and Dwayne Bravo batted slowly but sensibly to ensure victory for the hosts without any further loss of wickets.
Earlier, disciplined boHowever, he too fell victim to the resurgent Jadeja when a mistimed flick handed an easy return catch to the CSK all-rounder.
RCB continued to lose wickets at regular intervals as CSK restricted them to a low total.
Mumbai beat Punjab by six wickets
Opener SuryaKumar Yadav's 57 run knock and some useful contributions from other batters helped Mumbai Indians beat Kings XI Punjab by six wickets in an Indian Premier League (IPL) match here on Friday.
With this win Mumbai is sitting at the fifth spot with six points in nine matches, while Punjab is at fourth spot with 10 points in eight matches.
Mumbai started 175 run chase on a positive note, scoring 38 runs in 5.3 overs, but after that opener Evin Lewis (10) departed. Lewis was caught behind Mujeeb ur Rahman.
New batsman Ishan Kishan (25) and SuryaKumar then joined hands and played sensibly. The duo also managed to hit few beautifully crafted shots. But just when things seemed good in the middle, in-form SuryaKumar was dismissed by Marcus Stoinis in the 12th over when scoreboard was reading 80. His 42-ball knock was laced with six boundaries and three sixes.
Hardik Pandya also contributed but failed to make a good start count as he was sent packing in the 13th over. He played 13 balls and slammed 23 runs.
Middle-order batsmen Rohit Sharma (24) and Krunal Pandya (31) then forged an unbeaten 46 run partnership for the fifth wicket to overhaul the target with one over to spare.
