Twenty 20 Blog

A superb batting performance from the Banglalore Royal Challengers fired them past the Chennai Super Kings and into the 2009 IPL final.

The second semi largely followed the script of the first with the lower ranked team restricting the favourites batting to a manageable target then cruising past it with plenty to spare.

After losing the toss and being put in first Chennai wickets fell at regular intervals and they could only manage a steady rather than spectacular scoring rate.

The target of 146 always looked achievable and so it proved for a Challengers team who will return to the New Wanderers tomorrow to face the Deccan Chargers in the final.

Although Bangalore lost the early wickets of South Africans Jacques Kallis and Roleof van der Merwe the match looked in little doubt once Rahul Dravid had joined Manish Pandey in the middle. The pair shared a stand of 72 that swung the game decisively in the Challengers favour.

At first Dravid played the anchor role he has become synonymous with while Pandey blazed away at Albie Morkel, Shadab Jakati and Manpreet Goly – the latter being clubbed for almost 12 an over.

Inexplicably it took Chennai captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni until the ninth over to bring Muttiah Muralitharan into the attack. The Sri Lankan was the only bowler who managed to quench the flow of runs, strangling the batsmen into a positively pedestrian rate of 3.5 per over during his spell and removing Dravid.

By the time Dravid departed at the beginning of the 16th over the line was in sight for Bangalore and once Murali had left the attack the finish moved inexorably closer.

Virat Kohli and Ross Taylor assaulted the final few overs hitting two maximums each to win the game with seven balls to spare.

Chennai’s innings had got off to a solid start with the competition’s leading run scorer Matthew Hayden making 26. But, the Orange Cap wearer was outshone by his opening partner for once, with Parthiv Patel taking 27 balls to score 36 before he followed the Aussie back into the hutch.

Chennai never managed to get on top of the bowling, perhaps the job has been so often by Hayden this season that others were not ready to step up when the time came, certainly players of the calibre of Dhoni, Morkel and Jacob Oram should be able to dominate.

However, the overall run rate never climbed above eight and the only Bangalore bowler who went for more than seven an over was Vinay Kumar. But he compensated for his lack of economy with the key wickets of Hayden and Oram.

It was slow left-armer van der Merwe who was the pick of the Challengers bowlers, his one wicket cost just 23 runs at an economy rate of 5.8.

By Tim Evershed, Twenty20Blog.co.uk