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As rain put a dampener on The Oval’s 100th Test celebrations, one England batsman was concerned not with marking the past but protecting his future

The Report by David Hopps29-Jul-20170:56

Temperament wins over technique for Jennings

As rain put a dampener on The Oval’s 100th Test celebrations, one England batsman was concerned not with marking the past but protecting his future.Keaton Jennings’ England place was under threat after making only 44 runs in his first five innings against South Africa, his hundred on Test debut against India in Mumbai in December now a distant memory.Jennings was 34 not out – his best score of a draining summer – when rain arrived shortly before 3pm and prevented further play. England, at 74 for 1, were building an impregnable position, leading by 252 with nine wickets remaining, but will fear more disruption from the weather over the last two days. As for Jennings, he was just relieved that one of those nine wickets remains his.Vernon Philander had been conditionally discharged from hospital, coming out to bat for South Africa at No. 11 as they were dismissed before lunch for 175 and then summoning what strength he had left for a few below-par overs.His viral infection had not yet departed and he was still vomiting and suffering from abdominal pain. But NHS nurses presumably got him back on his feet by whispering the words “Keaton Jennings” kindly into his ear because it has proved to be a pick-me-up all series.Jennings was chary against Philander from the outset and might have fallen twice in successive balls in his second over. He inside-edged past leg stump for his first boundary, looking round uncertainly as if he had stumbled over a paving slab. The next ball, on 6, he was dropped by Dean Elgar, head high at third slip. South Africa’s cordon was bunched and close and, on this occasion at least, suffered for it.Jennings routinely stands as straight as a sentry at the crease. Put him in a bearskin hat and he could easily double as a guardsman at Buckingham Palace where he would have the discipline to stand still for hours while tourists snapped away intrusively. But it was movement, not stillness, he hankered after and he danced around on the spot in an attempt to rid himself of the stilted footwork that has bedevilled him all series.Alastair Cook departed for 7, undone by a top-notch delivery from Morne Morkel which he straightened from around the wicket to crash into the top of off. Too good for Cook, one imagines it would have defeated Jennings, too, but he watched from the non-striker’s end, a batsman spared.Kagiso Rabada’s first over afforded a release. He had the poise to crash two short and wide deliveries through the off side. In the next over, he tucked Morkel off his pads for another boundary: 19 and vulnerable had become 32, a score to build on, in a matter of five minutes.Not that he suggested permanence. He needed a review to survive an lbw decision in Rabada’s favour on 33, replays suggesting the ball had both pitched outside leg and would have passed over the stumps.While Jennings struggled, Tom Westley again played with elan, six boundaries in his 28. The best of them as far as Jennings was concerned was the one that persuaded Philander to leave the field for another toilet break. Before too long, everybody followed him into the dressing room, never to re-emerge.Toby Roland-Jones leads the team off after his debut five-for•Associated Press

The morning belonged to Toby Roland-Jones, who completed a five-wicket haul on Test debut as South Africa were dismissed for 175 – a deficit of 178 . Eight down for spit overnight, with Philander carded at No. 11, South Africa might have folded in no time. Instead they added another 52 in 15.4 overs.Roland-Jones led England from the field, raising his cap slightly bashfully, after returning 5 for 57- the first English quick to take a five-for on debut since Graham Onions in 2009. His last wicket was a good one: Temba Bavuma pushing forward to a ball that left him to fall to a keeper’s catch after making 52 from 120 balls.Bavuma had been a serene figure even on the previous evening, as South Africa collapsed to 61 for 7 with the floodlights cutting through a grouchy south London evening, and he looked at ease again in what were initially more inviting batting conditions.The stumps were blue to mark Cricket United day, as were much of the crowd, an annual fund-raiser at The Oval for three charities. It is a pragmatic choice. If you are going to ask a fair proportion of blokes to dress up in a colour for charity, it’s best to choose blue. It’s all some have in their wardrobe.After his dream sequence on the second day, Roland-Jones found life had returned to normal as he began at the Vauxhall End. The comparison between him and the quick he replaced – Mark Wood – is instructional.Roland-Jones is a classic English seamer, hitting the seam at an average of 83mph. Wood is the sort of explosive quick needed on more benign surfaces. But Wood has only averaged 86mph in his two Tests against South Africa. Averages tell only half the story, of course, as the potential for an occasionally quick ball is also important, but explosive bowlers need to explode.Bavuma had attractive moments, particularly when driving through the off side, striking Stuart Broad to the extra cover boards to take South Africa past the follow-on and then stretching his diminutive frame to the utmost to plant Anderson in the same direction, although he was dropped off Broad on 40, Ben Stokes failing to cling to a rapid chance as he dived to his left in the gully. His half-century was also raised streakily when he edged Roland-Jones wide of the slips.Morkel also put up stubborn resistance, reaching 17 before he edged a back-of-a-length delivery from Anderson to Cook at first slip.Roland-Jones might have picked up Philander on 5, but his edge flew wide of third slip. A one-legged flat-bat then lobbed over mid-off. But Philander survived, albeit not particularly healthily. He, at least, would have welcomed the rest.

تغلب فريق آرسنال على مُضيفه كريستال بالاس بخماسية لهدف، مساء السبت، ضمن منافسات بطولة الدوري الإنجليزي الممتاز.

والتقى آرسنال وكريستال بالاس على ملعب “سيلهرست بارك”، بالجولة السابعة عشر للدوري الإنجليزي الممتاز “البريميرليج”.

وافتتح جابريل جيسوس التسجيل لآرسنال بهدف مبكر في الدقيقة السادسة، ثم تعادل إسماعيلا سار لكريستال بالاس في الدقيقة 11.

وعقب ذلك أضاف جيسوس الهدف الثاني له ولآرسنال في الدقيقة 14، ثم تعرض بوكايو ساكا للإصابة وتم استبداله في الدقيقة 25 من المباراة، وبدت إصابته في الركبة، وشارك لياندرو تروسارد بديلاً له.

وبحلول الدقيقة 38 سجل كاي هافيرتز هدف آرسنال الثالث ليحسم الشوط الأول بالفوز بثلاثية لهدف.

وفي الدقيقة 60 تمكن جابريل مارتينيلي من إحراز الهدف الرابع لصالح آرسنال، ثم أحرز ديكلان رايس الهدف الخامس في الدقيقة 84.

ولم تسفر المباراة عن أهداف أخرى ليحسمها آرسنال بالفوز 5-1، ويرفع رصيده للنقطة 33 في المركز الثالث بترتيب الدوري الإنجليزي، ويتجمد رصيد كريستال بالاس عند 16 نقطة في المركز 15. أهداف مباراة آرسنال وكريستال بالاس

Some of South Africa’s international players will be unavailable for at least the first half of the domestic 20-over competition, which will impact CSA’s ability to grow the profile of the tournament

Firdose Moonda07-Jun-2016

Some of South Africa’s international players will be unavailable for at least the first half of the domestic 20-over competition, which will impact CSA’s ability to grow the profile of the tournament. The fixtures of the Ram Slam T20 Challenge were announced on Tuesday and the tournament is scheduled to run from November 12 to December 16, which overlaps with the Test team’s tour to Australia that ends on November 28.This means international players, including Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers, Dale Steyn and Kagiso Rabada, will only feature peripherally in the tournament, despite CSA’s desire to have their big names available for as much of the competition as possible. Such was South Africa’s desire to try and promote their shortest format like India, Australia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, West Indies and England have done, that they moved a Test in Sri Lanka’s tour of South Africa from mid-December to mid-January to free up the holiday period for Ram Slam T20. Although they have achieved that, the first 18 matches of the 32-game tournament will take place with the Test team playing fixtures in Hobart and Adelaide.South Africa’s 20-over competition has struggled to gain the same glamour as some of its counterparts for two reasons. Chiefly, it has not attracted enough international stars, not even from South Africa, and this will only change in the second half of the event this year. The tournament has also been unable to contract too many big names as the declining Rand is an unattractive currency, and the timing of the tournament is awkward for many players. In some years, it clashed with the Big Bash League. In a few seasons, it has clashed with Test fixtures in other countries.The competition has retained its sponsor for now. Courier company RAM were reviewing their backing of the tournament after last season’s competition was marred by match-fixing allegations which saw Gulam Bodi banned for 20 years for attempting to manipulate matches. CSA insists Bodi did not succeed. The investigation into the allegations has not reached its conclusion with the South African board still expected to name other players it intends to sanction.The rest of South Africa’s domestic season will take place as normal, beginning with the four-day competition that is split into two rounds of five matches each. The one-day cup will be played in a single block in February and March, when the national side will be in New Zealand, which also makes them unavailable for those games.The second-tier semi-professional tournament still includes Namibia and will be played as three-day and one-day fixtures but the 20-over tournament has fallen away in favour of the season-opening Africa Cup. Now in its second edition, the Africa Cup is played over four weekends with the table-topping team from each pool advancing to a finals weekend. All teams play only three matches and it also includes teams from Zimbabwe, Namibia and Kenya.

Having threatened to pull off a win over a big team in their first three matches of the Super 10 stage, Afghanistan finally went ahead and did it against the group-topping West Indies in Nagpur

Karthik Krishnaswamy in Nagpur27-Mar-2016

Having threatened to pull off a win over a big team in their first three matches of the Super 10 stage, Afghanistan finally went ahead and did it against the group-topping West Indies in Nagpur. Inzamam-ul-Haq, Afghanistan’s batting coach, praised his team’s self-belief, and reiterated the call for more opportunities to play against the Full Members.”All our previous matches have been close,” Inzamam said. “There haven’t been one-sided matches, it’s not like a team makes 200 against us and we are all out for 100 or 150. The team has been fighting, and the belief was always there.”But Afghanistan haven’t had that exposure of winning against big teams. The finishing point has not been seen yet. But now that we have won this, it will definitely help. And we had a strong belief that if we can come so close, we can win too. Today it has happened. We could have won against England, there was a close game against Sri Lanka too. So we knew we had the potential to win, but you still need that win. The more we play against big teams, the more we’ll learn, and can perform even better.”One of the players who displayed strong self-belief was the left-arm spinner Amir Hamza. Having been hit for 25 runs in one over in his last match, against England, he took the new ball, bowled three of his four overs in the Powerplay, and finished with figures of 4-0-9-1.”He’s one of our main bowlers,” Inzamam said. “Sometimes we need to make changes in the XI as per the conditions, and as per the player’s form. But he is a seasoned player and a terrific bowler. In the last match, he conceded 25 runs in one over, but he didn’t let it affect his confidence. Today, at a crucial point, he bowled well.”Sent in to bat, Afghanistan posted 123 for 7. Inzamam felt the total was perhaps 15 or 20 runs below par given the conditions, but said the team made it up with their bowling and fielding.”If you see, chases have been difficult on this ground,” he said. “Even in the last game, West Indies could chase 123 against South Africa only in the last over. India also played earlier and were all out for 79 [against New Zealand]. So it’s not easy to get runs in the second innings on this ground.”And we knew that, so it’s not like we had started out thinking we should get 160-170. Our target was 140 to 150, we thought we could put pressure [on West Indies] if we had that total. So we thought we fell maybe 15-20 runs short, but I think the boys fielded excellently. They caught well and saved 10-15 runs on the field. That covered the runs we couldn’t make while batting.”West Indies were playing their second match of the tournament in Nagpur, while Afghanistan – who had won three out of three first-round matches at the venue – were playing their fourth. Inzamam said Afghanistan’s knowledge of the conditions gave them an edge on the day.”We thought we knew this ground better than West Indies, we had already played three matches here, practised a lot here. We had an idea about the pitch and the ground, and that helped us mentally as well as on the ground. The bowlers knew how to bowl on the pitch, the batsmen had an idea, and we spoke about this in our team meeting yesterday also – that we definitely know these conditions better than West Indies.”Inzamam has been part of the Afghanistan backroom since October 2015. Asked how long he intended to stay on in the role, he said he would sit with the Afghanistan Cricket Board at the end of his current term and take a mutual decision.”I am with them for a year now, so I’m looking at [finishing] that first. After a year is up, we have to decide whether they want to keep me or not too. It has to be both ways. I have five-six months left and, inshallah, they will go well.”

James Anderson and Stuart Broad have been ruled out of action for the rest of the season due to injury

George Dobell27-Aug-2016

James Anderson and Stuart Broad have been ruled out of action for the rest of the season due to injury.While neither man was named in the England limited-overs squads, both had hopes of playing county cricket with a view to helping their teams, Lancashire and Nottinghamshire respectively, avoid relegation in the County Championship.A statement released by the ECB explained that “Anderson requires ongoing rehabilitation of his right shoulder and Broad, who last played in the NatWest T20 Finals Day for Nottinghamshire last week, is recovering from an ankle problem.”The news will come as a blow to both clubs. Nottinghamshire are currently bottom of the Division One table, 35 points beneath Durham, who are in seventh position (with a game in hand). Lancashire are sixth but, having won three of their first five games, have not won any of their last eight Championship matches in a run that extends back to May. The teams placed eighth and ninth will be relegated.”Both players have managed their injuries through the summer,” the ECB statement continued. “A break from cricket is needed to best prepare the Test opening bowling pair for England’s winter campaign that begins this October in Bangladesh.”The ECB also announced that Jonny Bairstow was to be released from the ODI squad to play for Yorkshire in Sunday’s Royal London semi-final against Surrey. David Willey, who has a hand injury, is not deemed to be fit enough to play.

The arrival of Lasith Malinga for Mumbai Indians and Shakib Al Hasan for Kolkata Knight Riders highlights the high-profile match between the two teams on Sunday

The Preview by Vishal Dikshit08-Apr-2017Match factsMumbai Indians v Kolkata Knight Riders
Mumbai, April 9, 2017
Start time 2000 local (1430 GMT)
3:01

Hogg: With Lynn opening, KKR very balanced

Head to headLast season: Mumbai Indians won both matches, by the same margin – six wickets – and with the same Man of the Match – Rohit Sharma
Overall: Mumbai have won 13 of the 18 matchesIn the newsMumbai will be buoyed by the arrival of T20 specialist Lasith Malinga, who warmed up for the IPL with a hat-trick against Bangladesh, although in a losing cause. His addition will strengthen an attack that took only three wickets and could not defend 184 against Rising Pune Supergiants in their opening game.However, they will be without batsman Ambati Rayudu, who was stretchered off the field during the first game with a groin injury. Rayudu will be out for at least 10 days, according to Mumbai coach Mahela Jayawardene. Saurabh Tiwary could replace Rayudu.Sri Lanka’s Asela Gunaratne also joined the Mumbai squad, although he will find it tougher to squeeze into the middle order that comprises notable names from both domestic and international cricket. Mumbai, however, might reassess their decision to leave out Harbhajan Singh, their most capped player, from the first game. He might help curb Chris Lynn’s aggression as the batsman strikes more easily against fast bowlers.Kolkata Knight Riders received an international boost too – Shakib Al Hasan joined them after receiving the Man-of-the-Match award by top-scoring and taking three wickets against Sri Lanka. Knight Riders have already changed their prolific opening pair of Gautam Gambhir and Robin Uthappa from last season, by making Lynn open. But, moving from Rajkot to a smaller ground in Mumbai, will they want to play three spinners again? Umesh Yadav’s unavailability will make them look towards Ankit Rajpoot as a domestic pace option.The likely XIsMumbai Indians: 1 Jos Buttler, 2 Parthiv Patel (wk), 3 Rohit Sharma (capt), 4 Saurabh Tiwary, 5 Nitish Rana, 6 Kieron Pollard, 7 Krunal Pandya/Hardik Pandya, 8 Harbhajan Singh, 9 Jasprit Bumrah, 10 Mitchell McClenaghan/Tim Southee, 11 Lasith MalingaKolkata Knight Riders: 1 Gautam Gambhir (capt), 2 Chris Lynn, 3 Robin Uthappa (wk), 4 Manish Pandey, 5 Yusuf Pathan, 6 Suryakumar Yadav, 7 Chris Woakes, 8 Kuldeep Yadav, 9 Sunil Narine, 10 Piyush Chawla/Ankit Rajpoot, 11 Trent BoultAmbati Rayudu had to be carried off the field during the match against Rising Pune Supergiant•BCCI

Stats that matter Among teams that have faced each other at least ten times in the IPL, Mumbai’s 13-5 record against Knight Riders is the best (by win-loss ratio) In the 2016 IPL, spinners struck 16 times at Wankhede Stadium at an average of 20.12 and economy rate of seven, compared to the pacers’ average of 34.30 while taking 26 wickets with an economy rate of 8.52 Rohit Sharma has scored 25.50% of Mumbai’s runs in the eight wins he has featured in against Knight Riders Mumbai have the lowest average (18) for opening stands, using six pairs, since the beginning of 2016. Knight Riders have the best (50), after utilising only two pairs Lendl Simmons, who did not play Mumbai’s first match, has the highest average in the IPL (47.10). As opener, he is only behind Virat Kohli’s average of 58.11. Harbhajan has dismissed a few attacking batsmen as many as four times each in the IPL – Gambhir, Chris Gayle, Manish Pandey, Kevin Pietersen, Suresh Raina and Dwayne Smith

Essex have added Neil Wagner to their ranks for 2017 as they look to compete on their return to Division One

ESPNcricinfo staff08-Dec-2016

Essex have added Neil Wagner to their ranks for 2017 as they look to compete on their return to Division One. Wagner will fill the main overseas role for the first half of the season, playing Championship and 50-over cricket, before the arrival of Mohammad Amir.Wagner, the New Zealand left-armer, had a successful spell at Lancashire last season, helping them to briefly top the table as he picked up 32 wickets at 29.28. He will add experience to Essex’s attack after the retirements of Graham Napier and David Masters earlier this year.”I really enjoyed my time in England with Lancashire last season, but I am excited about linking up with Essex and building on the team’s success in 2016,” Wagner said. “I want to bring my experience to the team and help us win games. I hope to help the squad get off to a good start in both competitions.”Wagner, who only plays Tests for New Zealand, is expected to be available for all of the Royal London Cup group stage and up to eight Championship matches, depending on when Amir joins up with Essex after the Champions Trophy.Chris Silverwood, the head coach, had been looking to bolster his pace-bowling stocks after losing Napier and Masters, who took 103 wickets between them as Essex claimed the Division Two title. Jamie Porter, 23, has an impressive record but 2017 will be his first taste of Division One cricket, while Essex will hope Matthew Quinn and Matt Dixon continue to develop.”Neil will bring vast experience at the highest level to the club, as well as a skill set that will be valuable in the opening months of the season,” Silverwood said. “He performed excellently for Lancashire last year and is also useful with the bat lower down the order. Hopefully he can help us hit the ground running in 2017.”

Batting for Change, a cause put together by the Sydney Sixers’ Ryan Carters and the LBW Trust, is an effort to further the cause of education for women and has grown with the BBL over the last four seasons

Daniel Brettig20-Dec-2016

While many of the BBL’s watchers this season draw interest from online betting shenanigans, there is also a way of spending money on the tournament that will go in a rather different direction.Season six of the tournament is also season four of Batting for Change, a cause put together by the Sydney Sixers’ Ryan Carters and the LBW Trust in an effort to further the cause of education for women around the world. Put simply, BBL watchers have the chance to pledge money to the charity via its website, with a set amount pledged for every ball struck over the rope by the Sixers.As the BBL has grown, so too has Carters’ enterprise, from raising $30,000 to fund the building of classrooms in Nepal in 2013-14 to a far loftier target this year – $150,000 to support projects in India, Sri Lanka and, for the first time, Kenya. This year Carters has been joined by a bevy of other ambassadors – Moises Henriques, Steve O’Keefe, Nic Maddinson, Alyssa Healy, Kurtis Patterson and Ed Cowan.”It’s interesting, they’ve both grown together,” Carters said of the two ventures. “There’s a reason the BBL has become so popular in Australia and it’s because Cricket Australia and Ten have done a wonderful job designing and managing the tournament. The standard of cricket itself is going up every year and the spectators love to see high quality clashes played out in the T20 format.”The WBBL has added a new dimension and expanded the fanbase again, and from Batting for Change’s point of view we offer a fun way to engage with the BBL, and as more people are watching matches live and on their TV screens, more people are signing up to become a donor, follow along and enjoy the thrill of seeing a six smashed out of the stadium and also knowing that’s another $1-2,000 that’s going to women’s education.”The Kenyan project marks a particular progression for Carters, as it not only supports education but branches further into social activism – namely the fight against female genital mutilation and child marriage in Kenya. “It is a really amazing story,” Carters said. “A woman called Kekenya Ntaiya, who grew up in a Maasai village called Enoosaen in Kenya. She was set to follow the traditional path, engaged to be married at the age of five.”But she struck up this horrible bargain with her father where she agreed to undergo female genital mutilation as long as she could stay in school until the end of high school. That was very unusual for girls to attain even that much education, but her father kept his word, she was allowed to finish high school, and then she was allowed to go on and complete university and ended up going all the way to a PhD in the US. With her newfound knowledge and networks she started her own foundation to educate girls from her own village.”Where we come in is that Batting for Change and the LBW Trust are providing the first ever tertiary education scholarships for women from this village. So for the girls who’ve gone through Kekenya’s school for girls and now completed high school, the first of them are ready to start university in 2018 at the University of Nairobi, so we’re excited about launching that.”Carters, who has pursued interests far more diverse than cricket throughout his life, hopes that this latest project can lead to others of a similar, transformational nature. “There are tricky decisions like geographically what do you want to support,” he said, “because there are worthy projects all around the cricket world and we’ve looked at a number of them.”But Kekenya really stood out because it’s such a moving story from the founder, and we know that as well as supporting women’s education, by doing so we’re also preventing female genital mutilation and child marriage. It’s about education but also preventing a harmful and oppressive practice. I think we do stand for social progress, above all with the focus on women’s education, which is a huge step forward in many parts of the cricket-playing world.”In that sense it’s already a very progressive vision for change to encourage women’s education. With Kekenya, the policy for girls to go to her school is that the parents must agree that the child will not be genitally mutilated or married before they finish high school. That further helps extend the social progress and the search for women to have the same rights as men.”When the Sixers meet the Sydney Thunder in the BBL opener on Tuesday night, they will compete to hoist the Batting for Change Cup. In doing so they will hope the symbolism can lead to further progress, via the pledges of the many thousands watching at home or in the stands.

Will Sutherland’s four-wicket burst set up Victoria’s 35-run win via the DLS method and knocked out New South Wales in a match curtailed due to an unsafe pitch

ESPNcricinfo staff15-Oct-2017
ScorecardGetty Images

Teenager Will Sutherland produced a breakout four-wicket burst to set up Victoria’s win over New South Wales at the North Sydney Oval. Apart from knocking out the home team, the result earned Victoria a playoff berth against South Australia, with Cricket Australia awarding the Bushrangers a bonus point for their superior net run rate. The winner of the Bushrangers-South Australia match will progress to face Western Australia in the domestic limited-overs final.The extra point, however, meant curtains for Tasmania. Had the Bushrangers not received the additional point, Tasmania could have still qualified ahead of Victoria by winning their final match in Hobart on Thursday.The finish was marred by the game’s abandonment due to an unsafe pitch, leaving the Bushrangers to be declared winners via Duckworth-Lewis-Stern calculations after 26 overs had been bowled under lights. Victoria had made 108 for 4 at that point and were deemed to be ahead of the DLS par score by 35 runs.Andrew Jones, the NSW chief executive, was highly critical of the decision. “It should be a No Result,” Jones wrote on Twitter. “Conditions didn’t change all game so if it was dangerous for one side it was dangerous for the other. This is right up there with declaring BISP [Blacktown International Sports Park] pitch dangerous right after highest batting partnership in history of FC cricket.”The Blacktown match was a tour fixture between New Zealand and a CA XI in 2015 that was abandoned after a record opening stand between Ryan Carters and Aaron Finch.Will, son of the Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland, played a key role in ensuring the Bushrangers gave themselves the best chance of reaching the playoff by plucking the wickets of Ryan Gibson, Ed Cowan, Mitchell Starc and Doug Bollinger. It was a startling display in just his second match, having started the tournament listed as a rookie and then called up to replace an unfit Cameron White.Victoria’s chase was successful despite another improved display by Starc, who claimed three wickets in his third match back from injury. Test spinner Nathan Lyon was rested from the match due to a sore shoulder after he fell awkwardly in the field against Queensland on Friday. Fellow spinner Steve O’Keefe, suspended from the tournament, broke a finger while playing club cricket for Manly on the weekend and is expected to be out of action for around six weeks.

Lungi Ngidi bowled a fiery spell of 4 for 10 to keep Kings XI to 153 before a strong and changed CSK line-up changed it down

The Report by Sreshth Shah20-May-20184:37

Agarkar: Bizarre changes from CSK in batting line-up

The equation was steep but simple for Kings XI Punjab. They had to win by a minimum of 53 runs to leapfrog to the fourth playoff spot, but Lungi Ngidi’s brutal spell of 4 for 10, followed by a patient innings from Suresh Raina slashed Kings XI’s hopes and knocked them out of the IPL. The result secured Rajasthan Royals’ fourth place in the playoffs.The evening started with Kings XI on 12 points, but with a net run rate of -0.490. Royals – who finished their league stage on Saturday – were already on 14 points but with a much better net run rate (-0.250), forcing Kings XI to chase a big win against Chennai Super Kings.But that wasn’t to be as CSK recovered from 27 for 3 to thwart Kings XI’s challenge. After posting 153, Kings XI needed to restrict CSK to 100 or under, but were knocked out as soon as the hosts went past that score in the 15th over. Eventually, Raina steered CSK to a comfortable five-wicket win, and ensured they finished second on the points table.Sunrisers Hyderabad (first) and Kolkata Knight Riders (third) are the other two teams to join CSK and Royals in the playoff.Ngidi, Chahar rattle Kings XI with seam and swingAsked to bat, Kings XI needed a big total to stay alive, but lost Chris Gayle, Aaron Finch and KL Rahul in their first four overs. It wasn’t the pressure that Kings XI were under, but fiery spells of fast bowling from Ngidi and Deepak Chahar that stalled the visitors.The surface at the MCA Stadium had both seam and swing on offer early on, and Ngidi struck early when Gayle gloved a leg-side delivery to MS Dhoni. Finch was squared up by Chahar next over, when he edged a delivery that was angling in, finding the safe hands of Raina at first slip. KL Rahul – Kings XI’s highest run-scorer of the season – was out to Ngidi at the end of the fourth over, when he shouldered arms to a short-of-length delivery, but the angle resulted in the ball clipping the top of off stump in spectacular fashion.Kings XI began a recovery in the form of a 60-run partnership for the fourth wicket between Manoj Tiwary (35) and David Miller (24), but Ravindra Jadeja and Dwayne Bravo dismissed both batsmen in consecutive overs. Karun Nair fought on, scoring a 26-ball 54, but with no other batsman for company, all Kings XI could score was 153.CSK recover after early wobble; Dhoni does a BradmanKings XI weren’t going down without a fight, and that was on display when Ambati Rayudu edged Mohit Sharma to the keeper for his first single-digit score of the season. Ankit Rajpoot then delivered a superb double-wicket maiden that forced CSK to stay on their toes. His swing bowling made Faf du Plessis edge to slip and Sam Billings lost his off sump that put the hosts on the back foot. With CSK three down inside five overs, Kings XI were in with a sniff.But just how Don Bradman did in the New Year’s Ashes Test of 1937, Dhoni opted to shuffle his batting order, and chose to send his lower-order batsmen in before himself, Bravo and Jadeja.With Raina for company, Harbhajan Singh scored 19 and Chahar smashed a 20-ball 39 to take CSK beyond the 100-run mark. Chahar’s wicket in the 17th over brought Dhoni out amid loud cheers, and an unbeaten 45-run partnership with Raina took CSK home with five balls to spare. In classic Dhoni style, he finished the game with a six.