With his career-best haul of 4/27 in the Indian Premier League (IPL), Imran Tahir helped Chennai Super Kings (CSK) asphyxiate Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) here on Sunday and deny them from using Chris Lynn’s 51-ball 82 (4x7; 6x6) as a launching pad.

KKR’s score of 161/8 was the lowest at Eden Gardens in IPL 12 and though CSK won by five wickets, after three games of landing jabs on a strip that afforded little assistance, the spinners did strike a few decisive punches.

Also Read: IPL 2019, KKR vs CSK at Eden Gardens, Highlights: As it happened

Sunil Narine began with a wicket maiden, dismissing Faf du Plessis with an off-spinner as the CSK opener tried to sweep. Narine was his usual impassive self when he foxed MS Dhoni as well but at 121/5, KKR sniffed a chance.

Between Narine’s wickets, Piyush Chawla got Ambati Rayudu with his first ball and after a long time, the chants of ‘KKR’ seemed organic and not orchestrated by the deejay. Chawla also stopped Kedar Jadhav from running away with the game with a drifter.

It continued the trend set by Tahir when he took two wickets each in the 11th and 15th overs. That broke the spine of a powerful batting line-up on a wicket where consensus is that anything under 190 is difficult to defend. More importantly, Tahir ensured that Andre Russell --- KKR’s get-out-of-jail card this season --- lasted only four balls.

After scores of 49 (19b), 48 (17b), 62 (28b), 48 (13b), 50 (44b), and 45 (21b), Russell fell for 10, unable to heave one that Tahir dropped short to be caught by substitute fielder Dhruv Shorey. With the first ball of that over, Tahir had taken out Lynn; Shardul Thakur, who gave away only 18 in his four overs and took the wickets of Dinesh Karthik and Shubman Gill, taking a good catch in the deep.

It was a double whammy KKR couldn’t recover from, proof of which lay in them scoring only 28 in the last five overs. Tahir had earlier dismissed Nitish Rana and Robin Uthappa in two balls.

Just when it seemed the ‘Knightmare’ would be completed by the old firm of MS Dhoni and Suresh Raina, Narine got Dhoni. Typical of CSK, they took the game deep and typical of CSK again they won this time -- Raina (58 - 42b, 7x4, 1x6) starring in the finishing act and Ravindra Jadeja (31 - 17b, 5x4) providing the final flourish.

As CSK zoom towards the playoff, KKR, after their third successive defeat, have five days to ponder what is going wrong before hosting Royal Challengers Bangalore.

First Published: Apr 14, 2019 20:05 IST