Zeecric Bureau/ Sudeshna Guha Roy

Johannesburg, May 23: It was more of a fairytale run for Bangalore Royal Challengers in the second season of the Indian Premier League. After finishing last in the inaugural edition, the Vijay Mallya owned team defied all odds to reach the finals of the cash rich event, beating the favourites Chennai Super Kings by 6 wickets in the second semi-final encounter.

The bottom line was to expect the unexpected. Who would have thought that the two teams, Deccan Chargers and Royal Challengers Bangalore, which had been at the rock-bottom of the points table last season, would go ahead to be the finalists this year.

The favourite teams this year were shown the exit door at different stages of the tournament, surprisingly leaving the platform for the two most improbable teams to battle it out.

Bangalore victory over Chennai at the Wanderers Stadium seemed a hard-fought battle before. But as the game progressed, the victory for Anil Kumble and his men became more and more evident, thanks to Manish Pandey and his match winning innings.

Kumble’s decision to field first was seen with some raised eyebrows. Later, the doubters were proved wrong as the bowlers and the fielders did a commendable job to restrict Dhoni’s men to 146.

Openers Parthiv Patel and Matthew Hayden seemed high on action from the word ‘go’. The duo hit some sparkling boundaries to get a quick half century for their team, Chennai Super Kings.

But the partnership didn’t last long when Vinay Kumar got Hayden (26) caught by Pandey. Hayden couldn’t resist the temptation and lifted his bat to hit a boundary at long on. But the Aussie miscalculated the distance and fell short to give a lollypop catch to Pandey in the deep, thus ending the 61-runs camaraderie.

Later, Jacques Kallis too joined forces to dismiss Patel (36) an over later.

The strategic time-out came with its jinx as Chennai lost three crucial wickets after the tactical break.

Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni (28), Suresh Raina (20) and Jacob Oram (9) fell in quick successions, failing to add much weight to the team’s total.

Albie Morkel’s (20*) late endeavour helped the Super Kings to post a modest 146.

That the target of 147 wasn’t a big deal for Bangalore was apparent in the body language of the ‘men-in-red’.

Chennai, like Bangalore in the first innings, grabbed two early wickets- that of Jacques Kallis and another of Roelof van der Merwe- thanks to Manpreet Gony and Albie Morkel, respectively.

Gony coaxed Kallis to get caught by Parthiv Patel for just 9 runs and later, Albie Morkel bowled out van der Merwe for merely 2 runs.

Van der Merwe’s luck favoured him once when Muttiah Muralitharan’s butter fingers dropped his catch. However, Morkel did his job in the next ball itself, relieving Murali of the burden of having missed a crucial wicket.

Morkel fired a pacy yorker length delivery on the middle and leg, of which van der Merwe didn’t get a clue and the next thing everyone saw was the leg stump flying away.

Later, Pandey’s match-winnings innings propelled Bangalore to a comfortable position. Rahul Dravid remained true to his nick-name, ‘the Wall’ as he played a good and supporting partner to Pandey.

Pandey missed his half century by just two runs after Shadab Jakati played the spoilsport and send him back packing for 48 runs. His bravura innings also awarded him the Man of the Match award for the second consecutive time.

Dravid too missed his half-century by a very small margin as the Spin Magician Muttiah Muralitharan struck to dismiss him for 44 runs.

Despite Pandey and Dravid’s dismissal, Bangalore did not have much to bother about as Virat Kohli and Ross Taylor played a sensible game to cruise their team to a comfortable victory.

Bangalore Royal Challengers: Manish Pandey, Jacques Kallis, Roelof van der Merwe, Rahul Dravid, Ross Taylor, Virat Kohli, Robin Uthappa, Mark Boucher(w), Vinay Kumar, Praveen Kumar, Anil Kumble(c)

Chennai Super Kings: Matthew Hayden, Parthiv Patel, Suresh Raina, Subramaniam Badrinath, Mahendra Singh Dhoni(w/c), Jacob Oram, Albie Morkel, Manpreet Gony, Shadab Jakati, Laxmipathy Balaji, Muttiah Muralitharan