Chennai continue IPL dominance

It was billed as a battle between David and Goliath, but the form book played out as scripted and the Chennai Super Kings easily defeated the embattled Pune Warriors by 37 runs on Tuesday.

It was billed as a battle between David and Goliath, the bottom of the table looking to upend the league leaders, but the form book played out as scripted and the Chennai Super Kings easily defeated the embattled Pune Warriors by 37 runs on Tuesday.

Chennai's score of 164 for three may not have been enough against a stronger outfit, but the Warriors had few answers with the bat and could only reach 127 for nine in their 20 overs, suffering their eighth loss in 10 matches.

The Super Kings won the toss and chose to bat first, sending out their darling Michael Hussey for another big score. But the Australian was out for just five, clean bowled by countryman Kane Williamson, leaving the job to his team-mates.

India's Suresh Raina was the man for the job in this game, scoring an unbeaten 63 off 50 balls, first in partnership with S Badrinath, who made 34, and then with skipper MS Dhoni.

Raina and his national captain put on 61 unbeaten runs together, with MSD showing his flair by using just 16 balls for his 45, striking three big sixes. Raina only hit one 'Maximum' but was more fruitful with the fours, hitting five.

Pune's knock suffered from sustained wicket losses, with Steve Smith the top scorer on 35. Mohit Sharma did the bulk of the damage with the ball, removing Tirumalasetti Sulman, Aaron Finch and Yuvraj Singh at the top of the order.

Richardson and Bhuvneshwar Kumar tried to keep the innings going, scoring 26 and 24 not out respectively, but the Chennai bowling was too strong and they ran out of both time and manpower.

Pune Warriors team: R Uthappa, A Finch, Yuvraj Singh, L Wright, S Smith, T Suman, A Nayar, B Kumar, R Sharma, A Dinda, K Richardson

Chennai Super Kings: W Saha, M Hussey, S Raina, MS Dhoni, S Badrinath, R Jadeja, DJ Bravo, A Morkel, C Morris, R Ashwin, M Sharma

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