Tuskers makes it 2-2

Brendon McCullum made a severe dent into the below-par D/L-adjusted target set by Chennai Super Kings, and handy contributions from Parthiv Patel and Brad Hodge then gave Kochi Tuskers their second win in a row. It was the impact of the clean hitting from McCullum that shook Chennai up, and Parthiv and Hodge took Kochi home with some smart cricket.

It was in compete contrast to how almost every Chennai batsman, bar M Vijay, struggled to find timing on a pitch that seemed to have retained some moisture. The Kochi bowlers used the track well, getting the ball to grip, but it was the ground fielding that stifled Chennai despite the fact the inside edges regularly found the boundary and mis-hits hardly ever reached the deep fielders.
McCullum then made batting looked ridiculously easy. Statements aren't made more emphatically than the way he treated Albie Morkel like a spinner at the start of the chase. He charged straight at Morkel in the first over and deposited him into the sightscreen. In Morkel's second, he went over cow corner. Disdain was getting defined. Doug Bollinger got a sample too when he did as much as pitch short of a length.

Mahela Jayawardene departed after hitting R Ashwin for a four and a six, but nothing was keeping McCullum from hitting balls towards the sightscreen, as Shadab Jakati realised. In the ninth over, Tim Southee also made the mistake of straying into McCullum's pads, and was hit for two boundaries as Kochi attained a rate of nine an over.
In between, Parthiv played a lovely cover-drive for four, but also got one inside-edge to run down for four to give Chennai a taste of their own medicine. McCullum wanted to finish things off fast, but miscued one off R Ashwin to leave the others 46 to get off 39. Parthiv was to make the equation simpler with a slog-swept six off Jakati, but he too mis-hit a pull to leave 26 to get off the last four overs.

Hodge and Ravindra Jadeja made sure there no jitters in the home stretch. Chennai's innings, though, never escaped regular and mild jitters. It rained almost throughout the first nine overs, play was interrupted for more than an hour after that due to a heavy shower, and Chennai remained sluggish throughout. Except for a flowing 28 off 18 from Vijay, none of the Chennai batsmen adjusted well to the pace of the pitch. Even Suresh Raina's half-century, and credit must go to him for getting that many on such a day, featured as many edges and mis-hits as clean shots.
Others had nothing to show for their efforts. Early movement consumed Michael Hussey, Vijay's first loose shot accounted for his wicket, and desperation at not being able to hit freely took care of S Badrinath. The decisive moment came when MS Dhoni and Raina came together. RP Singh, Hussey's wicket to his name already, welcomed the India captain with an over full of yorkers and a bouncer, conceding just two; that left Chennai on 109 for 3 after 15. In that spell of play, heave after heave followed, pad after pad was hit, and not even a 14-run final over threatened Kochi.

Kochi fired by de Villiers

Five blistering sixes from AB de Villiers, and his 52-run partnership with Saurabh Tiwary, won the night for Bangalore Royal Challengers.
The first came in the ninth over in which Sreesanth leaked 15 runs as Bangalore moved to 80 for 2. It was a full delivery, off a free hit, and de Villiers went down on a bent knee to paddle-scoop it for a stunning six over fine-leg. The next blitz from him came after spinners Muttiah Muralitharan and Ravindra Jadeja choked up the run flow in the next few overs. With 33 runs required from the last three overs, de Villiers imposed himself against Raiphi Gomez, who was asked to bowl his first over in that pressure situation. The second delivery was smashed over midwicket, the fifth disappeared over long-off and the final delivery was bulldozed over long-on. Game over.

It wouldn't have been an easy decision for Mahela Jayawardene, Kochi's captain, to turn to Gomez but RP Singh's poor effort in the 15th over must have forced his hand. With 59 runs needed from the last six overs, RP Singh bowled a poor over. The first delivery was outside leg stump and Saurabh Tiwary shoved it to the fine-leg boundary. The second was a wide, the third was spanked to the straight boundary, and he kept bowling length and went for 15 runs.
Bangalore played the waiting game well; they saw out Muralitharan and treated Jadeja with some caution as they knew the seamers could be taken for plenty. It was the same resolve that saw them come back in the game with the ball and restrict Kochi to 161 after Brendon McCullum and VVS Laxman had added 80 runs in the first nine overs.
McCullum and Laxman are as different as a Bollywood masala flick and art-house cinema, but they combined superbly to lay a good platform. McCullum was the McCullum the world knows: aggressive, adrenaline-pumping and audacious as ever. He sashayed down the track in the first over to slap a Zaheer Khan delivery over extra cover, but really exploded in the second over against Dirk Nannes. A blasted off drive was followed with a slashed boundary but it was a thunderous pull over the midwicket boundary that really tested the lung power of the home crowd.
Laxman has been itching for the IPL to start to prove his worth in the shortest format of the game. There were a few lovely hits: a late cut for four against Tillakaratne Dilshan, lofted on drives on a bent knee and a couple of flicks, but it was a flat-batted thumping six over long-on that really declared his ambition to do well in this tournament. It was a short-of-length delivery from Abhimanyu Mithun, who must have been really shocked to see Laxman back away and flat-bat it over the boundary.
However, slowly, and surely, Bangalore began to claw their way back. In the final delivery of the ninth over, Laxman slog-swept Dilshan straight to deep midwicket, and in the 12th over, McCullum fell, top-edging a paddle scoop off Virat Kohli. Suddenly, the slow bowlers began to apply the squeeze. The legspinner Asad Pathan combined well with Kohli to keep Brad Hodge and Mahela Jayawardene in check. Jayawardene tried to break free against Daniel Vettori but was stumped in the 15th over, and Brad Hodge was yorked by Zaheer Khan in the 18th over.
It was left to Jadeja, who showed maturity in his shot selection, preferring the straight hits down the ground instead of across-the-line heaves, to push the score along. He did his bit with the ball too but it didn't prove enough.