Abu Dhabi: Ravindra Jadeja won a close match for Chennai Super Kings (CSK) as his back-end pyrotechnics ensured a two-wicket win over Kolkata Knight Riders in an Indian Premier League thriller here on Sunday.
Jadeja (22 off 8 balls) launched into Prasidh Krishna, who bowled the 19th over, where the pacer lost his length completely under the Saurashtra all-rounder's onslaught with CSK reaching the target of 172 in exactly 20 overs.
Instead of bowling yorkers, Krishna repeatedly bowled length balls as Jadeja hit two sixes and two boundaries. Krishna conceded 22 runs in the penultimate over to leave CSK with four runs to get in the final over.
But there was more drama in store as Sam Curran and Jadeja were snuffed out by Sunil Narine before Deepak Chahar won CSK the match with a single.
KKR skipper Eoin Morgan's captaincy left a lot to be desired as the decision to bring in Krishna in the 19th over would be debated. Morgan in his defence could sight Anre Russell's injury being the reason but Narine in the 19th over could have posed more challenge for a rampaging Jadeja.
The win also meant that CSK remained unbeaten after the IPL resumed and once again were back at the top in the pecking order, with 16 points.
In pursuit of a challenging 172, CSK were down and out at 142/6 before Jadeja took the onus on himself.
KKR had posted 171/6, as they rode on late flourish by former skipper Dinesh Karthik and Nitish Rana after the foundation was laid by Rahul Tripathi (45).
Seamer Shardul Thakur (2/20 in 4 overs) and Jadeja (1/21 in 4 overs) performed impressively to keep KKR under leash till the 13th over when they were 93/4.
However, the last seven overs yielded 78 runs and KKR were able to put on a more than fighting score largely due to Curran (0/56 in 4overs) leaking runs at the back end. Even Josh Hazlewood (2/40 in 4 overs) got a bit of stick helping KKR's cause.
