Manvinder Bisla for two. Gautam Gambhir for six. Manish Pandey for a duck. Yusuf Pathan for one.
With four wickets down in the first five overs, just 21 runs in hand and a total of 157 to chase, things looked, well, dire for Kolkata Knight Riders on Wednesday.
But Andre Russell and Ryan ten Doeschate made sure it didn’t matter in their shockingly comfortable Champions League Twenty20 opening victory over Chennai Super Kings.
Ater their calamitous 4-21 start, Yusuf Pathan fell for 19, putting Kolkata at 5-51 with nine overs in the books.
Then Russell and Ten Doeschate combined for an 80-run sixth-wicket partnership before Ashish Nehra finally bowled Russell out for 58 from only 25 balls.
Ten Doeschate, the Dutch international, went for an unbeaten 51 as he and Pat Cummins got nearly the rest of the way there before Cummins was ran out for eight with seven balls left and Knight Riders standing at 155.
The final over would not be needed, as Piyush Chawla wacked the final delivery of the 19th over for a boundary to bring KKR over the hump to 159, capping a stunning chase.
Chennai’s star-studded line-up had seemingly established a defensible total, batting first in Hyderabad.
Passable totals from Dwayne Smith (20), Brendon McCullum (22), Suresh Raina (18) and Faf du Plessis (14) paved the way for MS Dhoni and Dwayne Bravo to finish the innings on an unbeaten 69-run partnership.
Dhoni, with three boundaries and two sixes, finished on 35 from 20 balls and Bravo, with a pair of fours and sixes, claimed 28 runs from 28 balls.
As Cummins was hammered for 49 runs of his four overs without taking a wicket and both Umesh Yadav (4-0-43-0) and Russell (1-0-12-0) leaked runs, it seemed the Super Kings had the upper hand.
But aside from Nehra’s four wickets for 21 runs in four overs, Chennai’s big-name bowlers mostly disappointed in response.
Ravichandran Ashwin surrendered 29 runs without a wicket in three overs. Ravindra Jadeja was hit for 25 runs in only two overs, with a wicket taken. Mohit Sharma (3-0-31-1), Ishwar Pandey (4-0-31-0) and Bravo (3-0-21-0) were each in turn merely average.
No bowler, of course, could hold a candle to Sunil Narine, who took a wicket and was hit for a mere nine runs in his four overs. Pathan, likewise, proved useful with a wicket for 16 runs in three overs.
And as it would turn out, Chawla, responsible for the winning shot, and his pair of wickets for 26 runs in four overs, were likely enough to help turn the tide.
Kolkata will play next on Sunday, in a match sure to draw much anticipation, when they meet Pakistan champions Lahore Lions.
Chennai will look to rebound against South Africa’s Dolphins on Monday.
The third Indian Premier League side in the tournament, Kings XI Punjab, play their first match on Thursday night against Australia’s Hobart Hurricanes.
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