Imran Tahir gatecrashed Chris Lynn's party with a figures of four for 27 as Chennai Super Kings bounced back to restrict Kolkata Knight Riders to a below-par 161 for 8 in their IPL fixture here Sunday.
On an Eden Gardens track where spinners had struggled so far, Tahir spun the match in favour of Chennai with his twin double blows in the 11th and 15th overs en route his career-best IPL figures that took him past Kagiso Rabada in the leading wicket-takers' tally.
Tahir removed an ominous-looking Chris Lynn (82 off 51 balls; 7x4, 6x6) and in a space of five balls removed the dangerous Andre Russell (10) for the first time under a score of 40 this season to put brakes on their scoring.
Tahir's bowling had such devastating effect that KKR managed just 29 runs from last five overs and went on to lose three more wickets and end up with a below-par total.
But it was a different script for KKR early on with a fit-again Lynn giving them a flying start en route to his second fifty this season that came off just 36 balls.
Having missed his team's last match because of flu, Lynn went ballistic against Deepak Chahar who bled 22 runs from his first two overs with the Aussie smashing the seamer for 4-6-4 in the third over.
Such was Lynn's dominance that the otherwise explosive Sunil Narine looked like a spectator at the other end with the Aussie having a share of 31 off 33 runs in the first four overs.
A 200-plus total looked imminent with Lynn looking dangerous and Russell starting to explode with a boundary and a six off Tahir.
But Tahir, aided by some brilliant catching from Faf du Plessis and the substitute Dhruv Shorey, made inroads removing Nitish Rana (21) and Robin Uthappa (0) in space of two balls.
CSK's catching was exceptional with Du Plessis charging in from long-off to dismiss Uthappa off first ball, then Shradul Thakur at deep square leg clung onto a flat hit from Lynn.
The big one was that of Shorey when he charged in for a swerving low catch to get rid off Russell, who looked in his usual explosive zone with 10 runs from 4 balls (1x4, 1x6).
