Kolkata Knight Riders and Chennai Super Kings faced each other in unpleasant situations as protests went on outside the stadium regarding the Cauvery issue. Shoes were also thrown at the boundary during the play inside the MA Chidambaram Stadium.

However, despite all the uncouth happenstances occurring around, the two former champions of the Indian Premier League did not fail to offer a magnificent game to the spectators.

Winning the toss CSK sent KKR to bat first. Sunil Narine’s innings did not last long as the opener returned to the pavilion after hitting two over-boundaries. He was dismissed by Harbhajan Singh.

Chris Lynn, however, managed to score 22 runs before Ravindra Jadeja bowled him out. Robin Uthappa made 29 runs and fell victim to a run out. Dinesh Karthik added 26 runs to the total before Shane Watson trapped him lbw. The same bowler had earlier removed Nitish Rana on 16 runs.

At this point, Kolkata were eyeing a middling score after losing 5 wickets at 90 runs. And then came in Andre Russell who rescued the team with blistering knock of 36-ball 88 runs. The West Indian’s innings was laced with one four and eleven sixes.

Russell remained not out and single-handedly lifted the total past 200 runs while Rinku Singh also failed to make his mark before giving his wicket to Shardul Thakur.

In reply of KKR’s 202/6, CSK openers went all guns blazing against the opponents’ bowling attack. Shane Watson made 42 off 19 and got dismissed by Tom Curran who later removed Sam Billings. Another opener—Ambati Rayudu contributed 39 runs to the scorecard before Kuldeep Yadav bagged his wicket. Following his exit, Suresh Raina was sent back to the hut by Narine on 14 runs.

Billings picked up a fifty and took the team closer to the target and MS Dhoni, on the other hand, stitched a 54-run stand with him. Dhoni made 25 runs and got out by Piyush Chawla.

DJ Bravo and Ravindra Jadeja finally steered the team to a victory by clubbing 17 runs off the last over and gave a nail-biting finish to the match with one ball remaining.

CSK won the match by 5 wickets and Sam Billings got the Man of the Match award for his magnificent knock of 56 runs from 23 deliveries.

KKR will take on SRH in their next match on Saturday and CSK will face KXIP on the following day.