Shabbir the Superstar in title win

Chandigarh Lions squandered a great chance to get past Chennai Superstars in the final of the Indian Cricket League 20-20 Championship.

Chandigarh Lions squandered a great chance to get past Chennai Superstars in the final of the Indian Cricket League 20-20 Championship. Despite restricting Chennai Superstars to a manageable 155 for 8, they lost by 12 runs.

Chasing 156 may have appeared to be a walk in the park for the Chandigarh Lions batting line-up, which included the likes of Imran Farhat, Hamish Marshall, Chris Cairns and Andrew Hall.

But Chennai Superstars had other ideas. Posting a total of 155 for 8, Superstars came out with all cylinders firing. Shabbir Ahmed accounted for the first two wickets in the form of Imran Farhat and Hamish Marshall off the last deliveries of the first and third over of the Lions’ innings. He went on to claim his hat-trick in style, trapping Chetan Sharma lbw to claim the first hat-trick of the championship.

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The Lions could put up just 143 runs for the loss of eight wickets as a late onslaught by Andrew Hall (30) and Sarabjit Singh (27) failed to save them from defeat at the Tau Devi Lal stadium.

Earlier, Marvan Atapattu played a blazing unbeaten knock of 75 runs to lead the Delhi Jets to third place after defeating Kolkata Tigers.

Brief scores : Chennai Superstars : 155 for 8 in 20 overs (Ian Harvey 36, Stuart Law 34, Daryl Tuffey 2 for 32, D Mongia 1 for 19) vs Chandigarh Lions : 143 for 8 in 20 overs (T P Singh 35, Andrew Hall 30, Sarabjeet Singh 38)