Chennai Super Kings notched up their fifth win in the Indian Premier League when they defeated the Deccan Chargers in the 39th game of the tournament. The victory margin was 19 runs but it was not as the Deccan Chargers did not have too many chances in the game.
In fact, the Chargers allowed the Super Kings to get out of the jail on two occasions. First was when the Super Kings were batting and in a way struggling to get to a big score. They had lost their consistent opening bat, Michael Hussey and the run-rate had only just pipped over the six run mark, at 78/2 in the 13th over. 
Had the Chargers been able to restrict the side to even 10 runs per over from there, they would have got to not more than 140. As it turned out, the Super Kings scored 87 in those last seven overs and ensured that the target was going to be a tough, 166, for a win.
That said, the Deccan Chargers must be lauded for their approach to it. They had another chance through their opening batsman in Sunny Sohal who scored a 30-ball 55, hogging most of the strike that he was at the crease. In fact, when he was dismissed, there had been seven overs bowled and he had played five of them!
At that stage, the Chargers were 71/1 in 6.5 overs and needed only 95 to win the game off 13 overs – simplifying the job for the team. An asking rate of seven is never difficult in this format of the game, especially with the kind of batsmen to follow, but the Super Kings choked the runs again and throttled the Chargers flow.
Apart from Sohal’s half-century, not a single batsman crossed 20; there were starts from five other batsmen, but they had scores between 13 and 19 and apart from the six that Sangakkara hit in his knock, there were no other shots that went over the fence either.
Earlier, the Super Kings were saved by a timely innings of 19 by Albie Morkel, who hit three sixes in the 18th over of the game to propel the side forward to a defendable total.
Morkel followed that up with a three-wicket haul despite going for 38 in his four overs and was declared the man of the match. The win took Chennai to ten points from their eight games whereas the Chargers now have six from eight.