Chennai Super Kings had won three finals out of six before this. They were hungry for a fourth title, and they bulldozed their way there with the help of a consistently powerful batting line-up, led by Suresh Raina
Alagappan Muthu at the Chinnaswamy Stadium05-Oct-2014The call rang out around Chinnaswamy Stadium. It continued as Suresh Raina pointed to his thigh. “Boo!” they cried at the umpire. It didn’t matter that Andre Russell’s appeal for caught behind in the fourth over had no foundation. Granted, the ball had whizzed almost directly above leg stump. But there had been no bat involved. The umpire was right but they knew what was at stake. They also knew they had no say in the match and the rumble died down.A stadium does not provide too many occasions for silence. This, however, was one of them, and the sentiments of a young Chennai Super Kings fan rang out as vividly as the boos. You can guess which call reached Raina better.The six that was asked was given. And another. And another. And another until he had a hundred to his name and Super Kings won the Champions League, with eight wickets and nine balls to spare. Kolkata Knight Riders may well have turned to each other asked why they bothered putting 180 on the board if it was going to be gunned down with such unnerving comfort.There was dew and there wasn’t Sunil Narine. Knight Riders, aware of both those handicaps, had tried to even the fight with a calculating batting display themselves. Their opening stand was reliable and eye-catching. Gautam Gambhir anchored the innings with a 52-ball 80. A late flourish from Yusuf Pathan ensured Super Kings needed a weighty top-order performance. And they got it.Raina was like a Las Vegas legend. Everything he tried ended in a jackpot. Seventy-two of his 109 runs came in boundaries. A vast majority of them were well chosen shots, with regard to the bowler he was targeting and the required rate. It had begun at just over nine but never looked out of his reach. Not because of a helter-skelter approach. He had a plan – hit straight and go hard. He was also keen to get a boundary away at the start of the over – the first ball, or the first ball Raina faced, of the third, fourth, sixth, tenth and 13th were dispatched.”He (Raina) was hitting sixes like he was picking up peanuts,” R Ashwin said after the game. “This is a small ground, but he was hitting sixes for ‘time pass’.”But there was a clarity to Raina’s thinking. Something he always seems to possess in knockout matches. He averages 51.90 and scores at a rate of 163.72 in T20 tournament finals and semi-finals, with one century and four fifties – and that is not including his exploits in IPL ‘eliminators’ and ‘qualifiers’. He unleashed a stunning riposte to a Virender Sehwag-powered Kings XI Punjab total of 226 in the second qualifier last season but wasn’t able to get his side over the line. He was quite conscious of not repeating that tonight.Super Kings’ strength, from day one, has been their batting. They talk the talk – their players have given plenty of interviews saying they like the odds of scoring 10 an over in the last five with wickets in hand – and they walk the walk. Dolphins saw them strut to 242 for 6. Raina was the propeller there as well. He fell 10 short of a century then. They were 69 for 4 in 14 overs against Perth Scorchers. Ravindra Jadeja and Dhoni teamed up to plunder 64 off 30 balls. Kings XI had Brendon McCullum, Dwayne Smith, Dhoni and Raina total only 26 runs in the semi-final. Yet the target they were saddled with was 183, thanks to Dwayne Bravo.”This has been the best team I have been part of. Every time someone fails, someone else picks up,” Smith said after the final.They might be the equivalent of muscle men in cartoons. Big biceps, which symbolise their batting firepower, attached to a tiny waist and spindly legs – their bowling. Then again, Kings XI might disagree with that picture considering they were all out for 117. Dhoni had said that display was an example of what had been lacking with his attack. Sehwag and Glenn Maxwell were dismissed for ducks. David Miller pottered around for 22 runs. A batting line-up that had everything to dominate T20 was reduced to cinder by accurate, unrelenting seam and spin bowling.The only problem, though, is that Super Kings can never bank on that. Unlike Knight Riders, whose squad brims with wicket-taking options, the primary reason for their 14-match winning streak. Narine is ace in the hole. Kuldeep Yadav is an excellent deputy. Piyush Chawla and Yusuf Pathan add to the strangle. Their batting is usually pampered with sub-par chases. Dhoni does not have that luxury and often goes too defensive too early. He usually has only one bowler who exerts control and tonight that was Pawan Negi, the left-arm spinner, who coaxed five batsmen out by flighting the ball. Yet Knight Riders amassed an imposing total. Dhoni led his team off the field at the change of innings with a clap. He had won a good toss. His side had not allowed the opposition to bat them completely out of the game. Now he just had to wait.Super Kings are one of the most successful T20 outfits. Having participated in all but two of the IPL finals so far is a source of pride for them and their fans. But three wins in six tries overall is not a favourable ratio. Tonight was a final, Super Kings’ seventh. And they wanted a trophy.They were more than happy to bide their time as Gambhir had Bangalore buzzing. One of his fans yelled, “Dude, I’ll go mad if he hits a century.” Instead he had to duck and take cover behind the “stats aren’t everything” line, while “C-S-K” chants exploded in the stadium. Meanwhile, the young boy who had been screaming for sixes from Raina was up on his seat dancing like he had gone mad himself.