An unbeaten 54 off 29 balls from MS Dhoni and a gutsy 53 from Badrinath powered Chennai to a crucial 6-wicket victory.

A pumped-up MS Dhoni again showed why he’s one of the great finishers in the game, blasting 25 runs in the final two overs to make Chennai Super Kings the only team to reach the semi-finals of each IPL so far. Chennai’s chances seemed dim after Shaun Marsh’s sparkling innings had powered Punjab to a massive total, but meaty innings from Suresh Raina and S Badrinath set the stage for a Dhoni onslaught in a tense finish.

The match was characteristic of Kings XI Punjab’s season: their batsmen have piled on more runs than all teams except runaway leaders Mumbai Indians, but the limp bowling has kept Sangakkara’s men at the foot of the table for almost the entire tournament.

MS Dhoni chose to field under cloudy skies in their crunch match against Kings XI Punjab. With net run-rate likely to play an important part in deciding who makes the semi-finals, and the possibility of rain interrupting the match, Dhoni said he preferred to chase.

Chennai made two changes to the side that went down without much of a fight against Delhi Daredevils: allrounder Justin Kemp comes in for Michael Hussey, while Sudeep Tyagi takes over from L Balaji as support for Doug Bollinger.

Kings XI Punjab are already out of the tournament, and if they finish with a victory, they will take out Chennai as well.

Chennai Super Kings Matthew Hayden, M Vijay, Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni (capt & wk), S Badrinath, Albie Morkel, Justin Kemp, Shadab Jakati, Doug Bollinger, Sudeep Tyagi, R Ashwin

Kings XI Punjab Kumar Sangakkara (capt & wk), Mahela Jayawardene, Shaun Marsh, Yuvraj Singh, Karan Goel, Irfan Pathan, Piyush Chawla, Sunny Sohal, Ramesh Powar, Juan Theron, VRV Singh