Chennai, May 21: Chennai Super Kings did everything possible to make life uncomfortable for themselves, gifting wickets at regular intervals to lose by 14 runs to Bangalore Royal Challengers here on Wednesday.

Chasing a modest 127 for the two points, Chennai’s task was made easier by a 60-run opening wicket stand between Parthiv Patel and Stephen Fleming but Dhoni who promoted himself to three and the rest of the order simply caved, leading to the embarrassing defeat. Praveen Kumar gave away only one run in the final over where Chennai required 16.

Anil Kumble in an inspired spell pulled things back brilliantly with three wickets, conceding only 14 runs in his four overs. S. Badrinath was unlucky to be given out leg before to Kumble. Albie Morkel and S. Vidyut fell to ill-advised strokes off Dayle Steyn that allowed Bangalore a sniff of a chance. Kallis made up for his failure with the bat keeping the run flow under check giving away only 15 runs in his full quota.

The Bangalore new ball pair of Steyn and Praveen lacked discipline. And Fleming made full use of the erring length to be destructive, slashing hard when offered width. After managing 40 runs in the first overs Chennai had no business in throwing this away.

A mundane encounter came to life when Fleming was castled by Vinay Kumar but the umpire called it a no ball as there were less than four fielders inside the circle. However what followed was mayhem.

Bangalore’s best chance in making a match of it lay in putting up a competitive score and hoping for early success with the ball. Their innings never gained momentum against a disciplined attack and a charged fielding unit. On a wicket that had sweated under covers for a good part of the day Makhaya Nitini and Manpreet Gony extracted good bounce making life uncomfortable for the batsmen.

Kallis was the first to go nicking a fine leg cuter from Goni and after surviving a torrid phase Sreevats Goswami walked after edging Goni.

It is important for the youngster to understand throwing the kitchen sink at everything won’t work even in this format. With timing deserting the top-order big time Rahul Dravid decided to drop anchor at one end.

Runs being difficult come by Virat Kohli tried going after Muttiah Muralitharan and ended hitting one to deep mid-wicket where Morkel took a fine tumbling match. Misbah-ul-Haq, one batsman who could have saved the visitors the blushes, went following Balaji’s away swinger.

Parthiv Patel’s outstretched right hand got the ball to stick in his mitts. Runs came at a laborious pace as Muralitharan with his now familiar leg stump line kept things tight.

The work done by Gony and Nitini during the power play went a long way in dictating the pattern of play. Gony continued with his good work hitting the deck hard and maintaining the three quarter length. Giving away only 11 runs in his four overs that also included a wicket maiden, he paved the way for Chennai to dominate. The first 10 overs produced only 41 runs and it took some bold hitting from Mark Boucher to take the run rate past the five run mark by the 15th over, the same in which he fell to a well directed yorker from Morkel.