CAPE TOWN: Things continued to go badly for Chennai Super Kings, as they lost by six wickets to Highveld Lions in their Champions League T20 match here on Tuesday.
The Lions won the toss and chose to field first and may have regretted their decision as CSK got off to a good enough start.
The first five batsmen all made useful contributions of more than 20 runs each, but none was able to push on, with captain MS Dhoni top-scoring with 34.
CSK had the most troubles against Aaron Phangsio, who took 2-17 in his four overs; he was named Man-of-the-Match for his performance.
“It was a nice wicket to bowl on, one of those days where the ball came nicely out of the hand. It is one of those wickets, it was a bit slow, you got to slow up your pace,” he said at the post-match presentation ceremony.
Chennai still managed a competitive score of 158-6 and they started the second innings well, after paceman Doug Bollinger struck in the first over to dismiss Alviro Petersen for a duck.
He then removed Quentin de Kock in his next over for a mere five runs.
With their tails up, Dhoni’s men pushed for more wickets, but Gulam Bodi’s 64 and a contribution of 33 runs from Neil McKenzie stifled their attack.
The pair put on 93 runs together, to take the Lions to 101-3.
The South African team weren’t out of the woods yet, however, still needing more than 10 runs an over at the death, and with Bollinger and Ben Hilfenhaus, who had been very economical until that time, still to bowl, there was quite a task left to Jean Symes and Chris Morris.
Both batsmen handled the pressure, knocking 21 runs off the 18th and 19th overs, and hit the nine runs remaining off three balls bowled by Albie Morkel.
A happy Lions skipper Petersen said, “Halfway through the game I thought we gave 15 runs too many. The batsmen stayed calm. Bodi played exceptionally well with McKenzie and the two young men finished it for us. Guys at the end showed some mettle and steel.”
Dhoni said, “We got off to a very good start, we lost too many wickets in the middle, so we were not able to slog the way we could have, but we still got the score we wanted,” adding that a near-160 score should have been enough. (PTI)