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Punjab enter IPL final for 1st time

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Update: 2014-05-30 17:43:00
Punjab enter IPL final for 1st time

DHAKA: Kings XI Punjab beat Chennai Super Kings by 24 runs to enter IPL final for first time. Punjab will play against Kolkata Knight Riders for title Sunday. 

Suresh Raina's heroics went in vain as Kings XI Punjab restricted Chennai Super Kings to 202/7, while defending 226, to beat the former champions in the second qualifier on Friday.

Raina scored 87 off just 25 balls and helped Chennai reached 100 in just six overs. However, his sudden run out derailed Chennai's chase.

Earlier, Virender Sehwag reminded the fans of his glorious past with a strokeful century, which propelled Kings XI Punjab to an imposing 226 for six.

Sehwag is only the second batsman this season to score a century after Mumbai Indians' Lendl Simmons, who had scored an unbeaten 100 against Punjab only. And this is not first time Sehwag has scored a hundred in IPL, his first coming in 2011 for Delhi Daredevils against Deccan Chargers.

It rained fours and sixes as Sehwag punished the hapless Chennai bowler with utter disdain to smash his way to highest individual score of this season, a magnificent 122.

CSK skipper M S Dhoni shuffled his bowlers around but there was no stopping Sehwag, who entertained the Wankhede crowd with eight sixes and 12 fours in a 58-ball innings.

And it is not first time that Punjab have tormented the Chennai bowlers like this, since their previous highest score (231/4) had also come against the Dhoni-led side, reports TOI.

The hand-eye coordination, which has got Sehwag thousands of runs in international cricket, was at work again. He put on 110 runs for the first wicket with Manan Vohra (34) and flattened the Super Kings bowling attack, which has conceded a score in excess of 200 for the third time in the season to the same opponent

BDST: 0339 HRS, May 31, 2014/updated 0853hrs

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