CHENNAI, April 9: A clinical Chennai Super Kings maintained their unbeaten run at home with a seven-wicket thrashing of Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League here on Tuesday.
The hosts put up a top-class bowling effort yet again after winning the toss, limiting KKR to 108 for nine despite an unbeaten 50 off 44 balls from the dangerous Andre Russell.
With the dew making batting easier in the second half of the match, CSK chased down a rather comfortable target in 17.2 overs.
With an emphatic win, CSK are back at the top of the table with five victories from six games while KKR suffered their second loss in six matches and will be hoping that Tuesday�s performance was just a blip in otherwise a promising campaign so far.
Shane Watson (17 off 9) smashed two fours and a six early on in the run chase before falling to a soft dismissal off spinner Sunil Narine.
Suresh Raina (14) too did not cash in on the opportunity to make a big score and perished in an attempt to hit Narine out of the park, leaving CSK at 35 for two in five overs.
Since the asking rate was not an issue, Faf du Plessis (43 not out off 45) and Ambati Rayudu (21) went about their job with little difficulty.
The South African, who scored 54 in his first game of the season here on Saturday, played another solid innings to take the team home.
Earlier, a lot depended on the in-form Russell after a poor show from the KKR batting unit. He played the only way he knows, going for big shots, and succeeded to a certain extent to finish with five fours and three sixes.
Brief Scores
Kolkata Knight Riders: 108/9 in 20 overs (Andre Russell 50 not out, Dinesh Karthik 19, Robin Uthappa 11; Deepak Chahar 3/20, Imran Tahir 2/21) lost to Chennai Super Kings: 111/3 in 17.2 overs (Faf du Plessis 43 not out, Ambati Rayudu 21, Shane Watson 17; Sunil Narine 2/24) � PTI
