Balaji bowls Chennai to victory !

Balaji took a hatrick and bowled Chennai to victory.

Earlier Sreesanth had reduced Chennai to 20/2, by taking both openers, Fleming and Vidyut. Vidyut hit 2 fours off Sreesanth, but Sreesanth had his revenge when he induced Vidyut to edge an outswinger into the hands of Mahela. Fleming was deceived by the pace and was caught.

Then it was left to Raina and Badrinath to steady the innings, which they did. Raina departed at 64/3 and then Dhoni walked in. In a 91 runs stand, both Dhoni and Badrinath played well and took Chennai to a respectable 181/4. Badrinath scored 64 and Dhoni was 60 not out.

Punjab was in dire straits at 29/2. Shaun Marsh played a magnificent innings but was out of 54. Yuvraj was dismissed cheaply and this event started the Punjab collapse. Balaji took a hatrick and finished with the best figures of 5/24.

The Juniors are leading in the tournament. As against Dravid's 169 runs, Ganguly's 116, Laxman's 155, the youngters like Gambhir had scored 305,Dhoni 289, R Sharma 263 and Uthappa 211!

Here are the stats for the top ten.

Gambhir 305
Dhoni 289
Gilly 284
Sehwag 270
R Sharma 263
Y Pathan 231
S Marsh 221
Watson 213
Uthappa 211
S Dhawan 206

Zaheer 13 wickets
Irfan 12
S Warne 11
R P Singh 11
M Gony 11
A Nehra 10
Watson 10
Sreesanth10
P Chawla 9
P Kumar 8