Kolkata, May 18: It was a pity that gushing winds, a bout of sharp shower and the failure-prone lights of the Eden Gardens had to decide the match. Chennai Super Kings, chasing 150 for a win, were 55/0 in eight overs when the match had to be abandoned.

The visitors were ahead by three runs on the Duckworth/Lewis scale and took home two vital points. The Knight Riders were left fuming as they were still in with a chance to make a meal of it. It was just not their day.

Stephen Fleming brought it to the umpire’s notice that a good percentage of bulbs in the light towers were not working.

At the end of the eighth over, the match referee Farokh Engineer intervened. By the time the repair work on the lights started, heavy winds coupled with rain forced the closure.

The ground staff tried their best, but even to keep the covers on the field was an uphill task against the wind. The lights came back but the weather had done the damage by then.

The catch Ashok Dinde dropped, when Parthiv Patel skied his hook, was the difference between a tie and a win for Chennai.

If the catch was taken the score would have been 54/1 and that was the D/L par score. Fleming was unbeaten on 32 while Parthiv had made 19.

There is nothing spectacular about the Chennai Super Kings on paper, yet they have come good at crucial moments. Sunday was no different at the Eden Gardens here.

The tourists stuck to a disciplined line with the ball, fielded with intensity and later batted with purpose. Makhaya Nitini’s four-wicket burst, that included an almost unnoticed hat-trick, helped keep the target under manageable proportions on a wicket that offered good bounce.

Earlier, Salman Butt guided the Knight Riders to 149 with a well paced 73 (54 balls, 10x4, 1x6). Butt made up for lost time once he got his eye in.

Precise with his placements, the Pakistan opener was severe on anything that offered him width outside the off-stump.

His knock justified Sourav Ganguly’s decision to make first use of the wicket that looked good for the entire match.

The new ball pair of Manpreet Gony and Nitini, who came in for Joginder Sharma, did a fine job in not allowing Butt and Mohammad Hafeez easy runs even with the field restrictions on.

Hafeez was the first to go clipping a ball to fine leg off Nitini, where he duly found Gony. Next in Ganguly never got going and the danger of trying an ill advised stroke was around the corner.