When Chennai Super Kings' skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the toss and elected to bat, he wouldn't have expected to get off to a worse start.

Murali Vijay (33) and Matthew Hayden (1) came in to bat and a lot of fireworks were expected from the duo. Vijay was off from the offset hitting Ishant Sharma and Shane Bond to the fences. He had most of the strike an in no time he entered the double figures.

The crowds expected big man Hayden to deliver with his new mangoose bat. However, the new bat didn't come to much use as Hayden walked back to the pavillion after chopping an Ishant Sharma delivery on to his stumps.

Suresh Raina came in at No 3 and worked well with Vijay to rescue the situation for sometime and stitched up a 37-run partnership until Vijay was clean bowled by Laxmi Ratan Shukla for 18.

Dhoni helped his team comeback strongly in the final overs as he smashed 66 from just 33 balls, having hit six boundaries and three sixes.

Dhoni slammed a blazing half-century to lift Chennai Super Kings to a competitive 164 for three.

S Badrinath gave him good support, scoring 43 from 33 balls, as the two batsmen 109 runs in 65 balls for the fourth wicket to change the script completely after Chennai were struggling at 55 for three in the 10th over.

Albie Morkel started off in roaring fashion with a wicket maiden. Brad Hodge lasted just two deliveries before pulling it straight to the midwicket fielder in the very first over of the innings to fall for a duck.

Manoj Tiwary started with two successive boundaries but Manpreet Gony had the last laugh after he had him dismissed off the very next delivery when he bowled him off an inside edge for eight.

From here, all hell broke loose and Kolkata batting line-up looked spineless.

Wriddhiman Saha was dropped by Hayden in the slips,when on naught. Then again he was lucky when he was dropped by Dhoni. He looked good during his brief stay at the wicket but he couldn't capitalise further, falling to Lakshimpathy Balaji in the 5th over.

Kolkata were in a shambles and were 45 for 3 after 6 overs.

Balaji then had Owais Shah caught behind in the next over. The Kolkata batting line-up was in further tatters when Justin Kemp rolled his arm over. He bowled an impressive opening spell, picking three for 12 in three overs.

Kolkata Knight Riders failed to hit any sixes in their ininngs and were on the verge of a collapse under the 100-run mark. Murali Kartik ( 21 from 20 deliveries) played a few huge swipes before he was run out as Kolkata were bundled out for 109 in 19.2 overs to lose by 55 runs.

Kemp was the pick of the bowlers as he claimed three for 12 in three overs, while Balaji took two for nine as Chennai dominated most of the game.