However, it wasn't all plain sailing for the Super Kings as they lost the toss and were inserted by DC captain Cameron White. CSK made a positive start through du Plessis, despite losing out of form Vijay in the first over. Faf, as he's known, hit some big sixes in his 25 ball 39 but struggled to pick up singles in between and holed out to long on, leaving the score at 63/3 at the start of the 9th over. DC were picking up regular wickets either side of his dismissal, Raina, Badrinath and Dhoni all got starts but failed to go on to big scores. Steyn's dismissal of the Indian captain at 121/5 at the end of the 15th left DC looking at a chase of around 160, very much do-able on a pitch that saw the ball coming on to the bat nicely. But brutal knocks from Jadeja (48 from 29) and Bravo (43* from 18) took the game away from Deccan who were left with no answers. White's captaincy has to be questioned as he used up his best bowlers (Steyn and Christian) too early and left the death bowling to his inexperienced domestic players. It all seemed rather like lambs to the slaughter stuff as Gony was powerless to stop big hitting Bravo from continually clearing the ropes. A score of 193/6 always looked too much for a comparatively weak DC side and this proved to be the case.
Deccan's reply started slowly and never got going, Ashwin has developed into a canny opening bowler and, as per usual, was near impossible to get away at the start. Once again though it was Jadeja who stole the show in the 2nd innings. He's a man under much pressure following a big $2 million move to CSK but you wouldn't have guessed it on today's performance. His accurate left arm spin blew away the DC middle order and his figures of 4-0-16-5 were comfortably his best in 20/20 cricket and completed a wonderful game for him. Were it not for an unlucky dismissal, treading on his stumps on 48, he would have left the match with a half century and 5 wickets to his name, an extremely rare achievement in the 20/20 format and one he richly deserved. The rest of the bowlers chipped in as part of a very professional display that you'd expect from the defending champions as DC were rolled out for 119 in the 18th over.
What turned out to be a comfortable win for CSK should never have been so, with DC throwing away their strong position with poor captaincy and bowling. Jadeja (MoM if you hadn't guessed!) and Bravo capitalised and put their side into an unassailable position, before Jadeja once again proved the match winner with the ball. DC will no doubt be ruing their mistakes and wondering what could have been.
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