Chahar and Brar lead Punjab to 7-wicket over Chennai in IPL

CHENNAI, India — Punjab spinners Rahul Chahar and Harpreet Brar stifled Chennai Super Kings batters as they led the Kings to a seven-wicket win in the Indian Premier League on Wednesday.

Chahar and Brar didn’t concede a boundary and picked up four wickets for just 33 runs off their eight overs to restrict Chennai to 162-7 after captain Ruturaj Gaikwad lost his ninth toss in 10 games and Punjab opted to field.

Punjab cruised to 163-3 with 13 balls to spare for its fourth win of the season with Jonny Bairstow and Rilee Rossouw leading the chase against a depleted Chennai pace attack under dewy conditions.

Despite the loss, Chennai stayed at No. 4 with 10 points on superior net run-rate ahead of Sunrisers Hyderabad and Delhi Capitals. Punjab is seventh with eight points.

Chennai fast bowler Richard Gleeson, playing his first IPL game, provided an early breakthrough when he got a leading edge of Prabhsimran Singh’s bat in his second over.

Bairstow, who smashed an unbeaten century in Punjab’s record-breaking 261-run chase against Kolkata Knight Riders last week, and Rossouw then combined in 64-run stand as both spinners — Ravindra Jadeja and Moeen Ali — struggled with plenty of dew.

Both batters fell in space of three overs when Shivam Dube deceived Bairstow with a slow cutter and got a thick edge and Rossouw missed out on Shardul Thakur’s full toss and got clean bowled.

Captain Sam Curran and Shashank Singh raised a half-century stand and guided Punjab home.

Earlier, Chennai didn’t lose a wicket in the power play for the first time this season as Gaikwad notched his fourth half-century of the season and Ajinkya Rahane put on 64-run stand.

Left-arm spinner Brar clamped the scoring by grabbing two wickets off his successive balls as Rahane slog swept straight to deep mid-wicket and Dube was out plumb leg before wicket while going for a big shot first up against the spinner.

Chahar’s impeccable leg-spin further tangled Chennai batters as he had Jadeja lbw off a sharp delivery before bowling confidently against veteran Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the penultimate over which went for only three runs.

Gaikwad raised his half-century in the 16th over with the first six of Chennai’s innings as he smashed Curran over mid-on before Arshdeep Singh had him bowled off a yorker.

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