Friday 22 May 2015 21:48, UK
Mike Hussey played the key innings as the Chennai Super Kings reached the IPL final with a nervy three-wicket win over the Royal Challengers Bangalore.
With runs proving hard to come by in Ranchi, Hussey's 56 proved the difference as Chennai chased down 140 for victory with just one ball remaining.
Chris Gayle earlier top scored for Bangalore but his innings of 41 was somewhat subdued compared to earlier in the tournament as it took him 43 balls.
Gayle hit three sixes and a couple of fours but the Royal Challengers were never really able to recover from 36-3 with Ashish Nehra claiming the first two of his three wickets in the opening five overs, including key man AB de Villiers for only one.
After Gayle became the fourth wicket to fall, it was left to Dinesh Karthik and Sarfaraz Khan to provide runs in the middle order, but they were never able to pick up the pace enough to set a more challenging target.
Karthik made 28 off 26 balls and Khan again impressed with 31 off 21 but Bangalore lost two more wickets in the final over and their 139-8 always looked like being 10 or so short.
Dwayne Smith made 17 at the top of the Super Kings order but it was Hussey who anchored things as he made 56 off 46 balls, hitting two sixes and three fours in only his third IPL match of the season.
He received good support from Faf du Plessis (21) but Bangalore briefly had hope when Yuzvendra Chahal dismissed the South African batsman and Suresh Raina (0) in the same over to reduce Chennai to 61-3.
Hussey and captain MS Dhoni took the score to 108 before the former Australia international finally departed off the bowling of David Wiese.
Dhoni and Pawan Negi took Chennai within five runs of their target before the latter was run out for 12, and they also lost Dwayne Bravo for a duck as a touch of panic started to set in.
Scores were level when Harshal Patel removed Dhoni for 26 but Ravindra Jadeja came in to score the winning run off the penultimate ball and set up Sunday's final against the Mumbai Indians in Kolkata.
Watch the final of the Indian Premier League live on Sky Sports 5 on Sunday - coverage starts at 3:00pm.
