Du Plessis heroic take CSK through final of the IPL 2018

Chennai Super Kings becomes the first team to reach into the final of the VIVO IPL 2018 after Faf du Plessis stunning 67* off 42 balls helped his team to beat Sunrisers Hyderabad by 2 wickets in the first qualifier at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai on Tuesday (May 22).

Sunrisers Hyderabad posts 139 on the board after putting to bat first. Thanks to Carlos Brathwaite's late blitz of 43* off 29 balls. In reply, CSK were struggling on 62 for 6 before du Plessis pulled out a stunning show and won it almost single handily for his team.



SRH off to a miserable start

After putting to bat first, Sunrisers lost Shikhar Dhawan on the very first ball of the innings. Deepak Chahar's inswinging got Dhawan out. However, Kane Williamson hit three back to back fours in first over and tried to give momentum to SRH innings. When they were looking to build a partnership Lungi Nagidi dismissed Goswami before Shardul Thakur trapped big fish in back to back overs. Williamson scored 24 off 15. After that, they kept losing wickets in regular space and at one stage they reduced to 88 for 6 after 15 overs.

Brathwaite's late assault kept SRH in the hunt



After losing 6 wickets on 88, Carlos Brathwaite took responsibility on his own shoulders and hammered 43 off 29 balls including one four and 4 sixes. He put on a 51-run stand off 30 balls with Bhuvneshwar Kumar. He collected 20 runs from the last over Thakur with two sixes and a four.

CSK off to similar start to SRH

In reply to 140, CSK got off to very much similar start as SRH had started. First Bhuvneshwar got Shane Watson in 5th ball of the innings. After that Suresh Raina hit three fours to Sandeep Sharma before Siddarth Kaul bowled Raina and Ambati Rayudu out on back to back balls. Raina scored 22 while Rayudu could not open his account. After that, it was Rashid Khan who had almost won the game for SRH by picking MS Dhoni in 8th over.



Rashid Khan kept things tight further. In this process, he got another wicket this time he trapped Bravo in slip region. At one stage they reduced to 62 for 6 after 12.3 overs.

Du Plessis- finish it off in style

After losing 6 wickets, Plessis added 30 runs off 15 balls with Chahar for the 7 wickets. But he changed the game in 18th over where he scored 20 runs off Brathwaite with the help of 3 fours and a six. In that over he reached his first fifty of this IPL off just 37 balls. With 23 runs needed in two overs, Shardul Thakur joined the party with Plessis and hammered valuable 17 runs off Siddarth Kaul in 19th over. Only 6 required off the last over, Plessis hit the first ball for a six and helped CSK to reach their record 7th IPL final. Du Plessis hit 5 fours and 4 sixes in his match-winning knock and awarded Man Of The Match

Spinners day out

In a low scoring thriller, Ravindra Jadeja and Rashid Khan were the star performer with the balls. First Jadeja who conceded only 13 runs in his 4 overs and picked Manish Pandey while Rashid Khan finished his spell with the even more impressive figures of 4-0-11-2. Lungi Nagidi also bowled well and gave away only 20 runs in 4 overs and picked a wicket too.

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