Matthew Hayden played a blinder of an inning to guide the Chennai Super Kings to a rather easy win in the end over the Delhi Daredevils at the Feroz Shah Kotla. This was Chennai’s second successive win after their first game loss and Delhi’s second continuous loss after a win in the first two games.
The Delhi Daredevils, who were led by Dinesh Karthik in the absence of Gautam Gambhir, batted first and despite the early loss of Dave Warner, the Daredevils were 35/1 in 3.3 overs. this was thanks to Virender Sehwag’s swashbuckling start, that saw him race to his half century off only 21 balls. 
At the other end, Tillakaratne Dilshan struggled to get going like he hasn’t throughout the duration of this tournament so far, and scored only 15 off 24 balls. However, he supported Sehwag well and by the time he was dismissed, the Daredevils had reached 102 in 11 overs. 
At this stage, it looked that with Sehwag still around and having got the measure of the pitch, Delhi could get to around 200. However, a slowing pitch aided by a superb one-handed catch by Justin Kemp at the boundary cut his innings short on 74 (38 balls) off the bowling of Muthiah Muralitharan.
After this, very expectedly the run-rate came down as the new batsmen failed to match Sehwag’s pace and the spin of Muralitharan. Unfortunately, both Dinesh Karthik and AB de Villiers failed to get going with the bat, and despite a cameo from Mithun Manhas and Rajat Bhatia in the end, Delhi managed only 185/6 in the 20 overs – failing to cross the 200-run mark.
While this total was a reasonably good one, the problem was that the previous season’s Orange Cap winner, Matthew Hayden, had yet to get going in this series. He did exactly that in the game, as he unleashed the new bat, Mongoose, with sheer force and in the process did not allow the side to feel the absence of skipper MS Dhoni. Parthiv Patel left early – opening in place of Murali Vijay – but that did not deter Hayden from taking full toll of the two Indian bowlers, Umesh Yadav and Pradeep Sangwan.
With S Badrinath at the other end, Hayden added 43 for the second wicket, but it was the partnership with Suresh Raina that took Chennai very close. The pair was very harsh on the weak-looking Delhi bowling and in 39 balls, they smacked 78 runs.
Hayden’s Mongoose saw him smash a 43-ball 93 and he would have completed his century as well, had it not been for a brilliant piece of catching at the boundary by Dilshan. However, by then, it was a little too little, too late. Chennai needed only 44 runs off 39 balls at this stage, and despite Albie Morkel being sent back for a duck by Dilshan, and Justin Kempt’s eary dismissal, the rest of the runs were a walk in the park. Chennai won with five balls to spare.
Hayden won the man of the match and with this result, both, Chennai and Delhi now have four points. Chennai has played three games, whereas Delhi has played four.