Kolkata win thanks to late fifties

The Kolkata Knight Riders got their Champions League T20 campaign off to an exciting start, beating the Chennai Super Kings in the much-anticipated event opener by three wickets and an over to spare.

It wasn’t the most clinical of matches, as both batting orders failed to get going, but Chennai posted 157 for four, with the IPL champions then reached thanks to late fifties from Andre Russell and Ryan ten Doeschate.

The CSK scorecard was not overly impressive, with the top order all getting good starts but then failing to kick on. The top score was 35 not out from MS Dhoni, while four other batsmen reached the 20s.

The international star-studded order failed to fire in their first outing, with Dwayne Smith (20), Faf du Plessis (14) and Brendon McCullum (22) all struggling against the Kolkata bowlers, with Piyush Chawla the best of the lot, taking two wickets.

The Kolkata chase did not get off to a promising start and the Super Kings would have been hopeful of defending their score. The top four batsmen were all out for single figures, leaving the score on 21 for four.

They lost their fifth when Suryakumar Yadav was removed for 19, the score on 51, and it seemed a bit hopeless after nine overs. But then Russell and former Holland international Ten Doeschate joined forces, putting on 80 runs in seven overs.

Tendo was unbeaten on 51 off 41 balls at the end, while West Indies smasher Russell was out for 58 off 25 balls, having smashed five sixes. This left Pat Cummins and Chawla to finish the game with the Dutchman.