Chennai hand Delhi their sixth defeat on the trot

A solid knock by Michael Hussey and brilliant bowling at the top by young Mohit Sharma gave Chennai Super Kings a well deserved victory over struggling Delhi Daredevils here at the Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi. This is Delhi's sixth defeat in a row while Chennai got back to winning ways after a surprising loss to Pune Warriors in their previous match. (BCCI Image)

Michael Hussey (65 off 50) and skipper MS Dhoni (44 off 23 balls) propelled Chennai Super Kings to 169/4 against Delhi Daredevils in the 24th match of the IPL 2013 being played in Delhi.
A crucial drop by Ajit Agarkar of skipper Dhoni, cost Delhi 27 runs as the Chennai batsman hit 5 fours and a huge six in his innings. (BCCI Image)

Murali Vijay and back-in-team Michael Hussey took the Chennai team off to a good start with the under-fire Indian particularly punishing Umesh Yadav in the fourth over. The visitors though lost the charismatic batsman from Chennai to Morkel even as he was starting to look dangerous on 18 off 13 balls. He went lbw right in front but looked disappointed nonetheless. (BCCI Image)

Suresh Raina then joined Hussey and both played quite steadily, hitting the occasional boundary and concentrating on the singles. It looked as if Chennai's ploy was to attack at the death and conserve wickets at the start. For the next 5.3 overs, the pair added just 30 more runs at just under 6-an-over. (BCCI Image)

Delhi bowlers - Morkel, Ajit Agarkar (playing in place of Nehra) and Shahbaz Nadeem were particularly miser - giving away 29 runs in their six overs till then. (BCCI Image)

That is when Raina and Hussey opened up and punished Umesh Yadav and Agarkar. Yadav's second over went for 9 while Agarkar's third over cost him 14 runs. Irfan Pathan then struck to remove Raina for a slow 30 off 32 balls as the left-hander tried to smash a wide one, only managing an edge to keeper Kedar Jadhav. (BCCI Image)

Skipper MS Dhoni, who promoted himself up the order, started off in blistering fashion hitting fours off Pathan and Morkel.

Hussey, who had batted steadily at best, meanwhile started to bring his A-game to fore, hitting Agarkar and Nadeem for huge sixes. Agarkar then provided Chennai skipper Dhoni a lifeline off Yadav, dropping a flat shot with Dhoni on 17. (BCCI Image)

The Indo-Aussie pair then took full toll of Morkel in his final over taking 19 runs - Dhoni hitting a six and a four and Hussey, a couple of fours. The South African's figures of 1/23 in three were damaged to 1/42 in four. (BCCI Image)

Delhi, who badly needed their opening pair to fire, got off to the worst start possible losing Warner and Manprit Juneja to young Haryana bowler Mohit Sharma in the second over of their innings. The Australian went trying to cut a ball close to his body and managing an inside edge while Juneja might have been unlucky, as shown in consequent replays, but Sharma nonetheless celebrated. Delhi was 13/2 at this stage. (BCCI Image)

It got only worse for the home side as the crowd began to quieten. The next to go was Delhi skipper Mahela Jayawardena. Him and Sehwag had just about begun to resurrect the innings when the Sri Lankan was given out lbw by the umpire off Chris Morris. Jayawardena had earlier in the over got, what looked like, a reprieve, when the umpire could not spot a nick. Dhoni had then went berserk after completing the catch. (BCCI Image)

Sehwag then departed the very first ball of the next over to virtually dismiss Delhi's hopes of any sort of revival. The bowler was Mohit Sharma yet again as the Delhi batsman hit a half-hearted pull only to hand a simple catch to Hussey at deep square-leg. He scored 17 runs off 13 balls. (BCCI Image)

Chennai's Sharma finished with 3/10 in his three overs, ably supported by R Ashwin (2/18). Albie Morkel, Ravindra Jadeja, Chris Morris and Dwayne Bravo took a wicket each. (BCCI Image)

Jeevan Mendis and Kedar Jadhav then joined hands to make a match out of it. The pair progressed steadily to add 31 runs in 5 overs before hara-kiri in the middle highlighted Delhi's woes. Slow Jadhav never wanted a second run while Mendis was convinced on a brace. Raina and Jadeja combined to get Mendis run-out, who also slipped mid-way to complicate things. (BCCI Image)

Irfan Pathan and Ajit Agarkar then were removed in identical fashions. Left-hander Pathan was taken by Jadeja caught by Bravo at long-on while right-hander Agarkar was taken by Ashwin, caught by the same man in the same position. The West Indian did his customary 'Calypso' jig. (BCCI Image)