Badrinath stars in easy Chennai win

Stunning performances by Doug Bollinger and Subramaniam Badrinath saw Chennai Super Kings thrash Pune Warriors by eight wickets in an Indian Premier League (IPL) match at the D.Y. Patil Sports Academy here yesterday.Man of the Match Bollinger bowled exceptionally well for his three wickets for 21 runs and restricted the Pune Warriors to 141 for six in 20 overs after skipper Yuvraj Singh remained unbeaten on 62. Ravichandran Aswhin, Tim Southee and Nuwan Kulasekara also picked up a wicket apiece.Badrinath then starred with the bat, scoring an unbeaten 63 off 44 balls as Super Kings raced to 145 with three balls to spare and eight wickets in hand. Opener Murali Vijay scored a run-a-ball 31 while Suresh Raina was not out on 34 from 25 balls. With the win, Super Kings jumped to second spot with eight points from seven matches while the Warriors are eighth with four points after six matches.Super Kings made a slow start and lost Mike Hussey (9) in the fifth over with just 19 runs on the board. But Badrinath held the innings together and was involved in two crucial partnerships to take Super Kings to home safely.Badrinath first forged a 61-run stand with Vijay and then an unbeaten 65-run with Raina as the Super Kings maintained an all-win record over the new entrants. Badrinath hit six fours and two sixes in his third 50 of the tournament. Badrinath also became the leading run-getter for the Super Kings with 235 runs in seven matches.Earlier, opting to bat, Warriors made another disastrous start, losing their first four wickets for 41 runs and Singh played a captain’s knock of 62 from 43 balls to take the team to a respectable total. In their last match, also against the Super Kings, the Warriors suffered a similar collapse, losing the top four for 40 runs.The Warriors top-order failed yet again as Jesse Ryder (19) and Mohnish Mishra (2) succumbed to short-pitched stuff by Bollinger, who troubled the batsman with swing early in the innings. Manish Pandey (10), playing his second match this season, failed to make an impact while Mithun Manhas didn’t trouble the scorers.