Muralitharan stormed the field claiming three wickets for 11 runs, including two in three balls in his first over. The Royal Challengers could do little more than watch the destruction helplessly as they were run down for 87 runs with a good 3.4 overs to spare. On being named as the man of the match Murali modestly said he believed Matthew Hayden deserved the award more. After all his genius was what took the team to a mammoth total of 179 for 5. He also said that he knew he would get a good turn on the pitch after seeing how dry it was.

The Chennai Super Kings captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni spared no words to praise the ace spinner. He knew it was going to be Murali’s day after he saw him bowling the first ball. He said, “When he comes around the wicket, with big turn and with the Doosra, he can deceive batsmen.”

But Murali wasn’t the lone ranger in Team Chennai’s win. Thanks to the openers’ invaluable contribution - Hayden (65 off 35 balls) and Parthiv Patel (30 off 26 balls) - was the team able to pose a target that was stronger than just defendable. Everybody had expected a slow, turning pitch; but it was like putty Patel and Hayden’s hands.

Kevin Pietersen, Captain of the Bangalore Royal Challengers credited Hayden’s performance while adding that his bowlers hadn’t done well enough. He quoted, “you have to take your hat off to a genius like that... We didn’t really turn up today. We may as well have stayed in Cape Town and given them the two points. But what makes T20 so great is that no team can dominate. So it’s heads up and we need to make sure we can compete in our next game.”

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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