Punjab Kings defeated the Chennai Super Kings by six wickets on Thursday. It was skipper KL Rahul who led the 2014 finalists in the chase of a modest 135 runs. The 29-year-old scored 98 runs in 42 balls. 

It was the last ball of the 13th over, when Rahul smoked Shardul Thakur for a six over backward square leg to finish an eventful chase. His 98-run-knock came at a whopping strike rate of 233.33. 

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CSK scored 134 for six against Punjab Kings after being put in to bat. Faf du Plessis top-scored for CSK with 76 off 55 balls while Arshdeep Singh and Chris Jordan impressed with the ball for Punjab, taking couple of wickets each.

For Punjab, leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi bowled an impressive spell of 4-0-25-1. The youngster picked dismissed CSK captain MS Dhoni. With this win Punjab’s hopes to qualify for the playoffs are technically alive. 

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Talking after the loss, MS Dhoni said,” You have to cope (when it comes to mental or skill aspect) up with that. We had played very good cricket to reach the playoff stages. We had a few bad games 2 out of 3 and one we felt like we could have a comeback and that’s part and parcel d in leagues like these, you have to be at your best.”

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Chennai Super Kings, who finish the round robin stage on the second rung of the points table, have now lost three matches in a row.

“Motivation is not a factor, the guys are highly motivated and maybe we need to tune up slightly as to what needs to be done and also a few tosses if they had gone our way. It would have looked worse winning toss and batting on that wicket and I felt the wicket changed a bit, it was a bit challenging but it was a good wicket,” Dhoni added.