Bravo stars in
Chennai’s
victory

Dwayne Bravo played a superb knock powering Chennai Super Kings to a four wicket victory over Cape Cobras in the Twenty20 Champions League match here on Wednesday night.

Chasing 146 for victory, the defending champions reached the target with two balls to spare. Bravo made a match-winning 46 off 25 balls. He smashed three fours and two sixes in his entertaining innings. Earlier he had picked up two wickets for 23 runs.

The 41-run sixth wicket partnership between captain MS Dhoni and Dwayne Bravo boosted Chennai’s victory hopes but his dismissal in the 18^th over brought back Cape Cobras into the match. However Bravo changed the equation in the final two overs. Dhoni made 15 from 17 balls.

Chennai began their chase in good fashion with Michael Hussey and Murali Vijay adding 41 runs for the first wicket. Vijay was the first to go after making 14 from 10 balls, while Hussey scored 29 off 24. Suresh Raina found the going a bit tough as he could make only 20 off 23 balls before giving his wicket to JP Duminy. Subramaniam Badarinath and Wriddhiman Saha fell cheaply as well, making the chase a bit difficult for the home team.

Earlier Cape Cobras made 145 for seven wickets in their 20 overs, thanks to Owais Shah’s 45 off 38 balls, including three fours and one six. Though Hershelle Gibbs (18) and Dane Vilas (18) got good starts, they couldn’t convert them into big scores. JP Duminy chipped in with a useful 29 from 24 balls before falling to pacer Albie Morkel, who finished with figures of 2-26. Both Doug Bollinger and Dwayne Bravo bowled brilliantly, picking up two wickets each. Spinner Ravichandran Ashwin bagged a wicket for 26 runs from his four overs.

Morkel gave the decisive break through when he removed Shah and Duminy in the space of three balls which restricted the team score, which at one stage looked much promising.