On This Day: CSK’s Suresh Raina scored maiden IPL century vs KXIP in Chennai

Suresh Raina scored maiden IPL century: Super Kings vice-captain had finally reached the three-figure mark in the Indian Premier League.

On this day in 2013, Chennai Super Kings vice-captain Suresh Raina scored his maiden century in the Indian Premier League against Kings XI Punjab in Chennai during the 45th match of the sixth season of the tournament.

After CSK captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the toss and chose to bat, Raina came in to bat at No. 3 in the fourth over after Wriddhiman Saha (18) was dismissed by Parvinder Awana.

It was on the third delivery that he faced that Raina hit a wide full-toss off KXIP captain David Hussey for a boundary. Having hit a boundary off Piyush Chawla in the seventh over, the southpaw once again attacked Hussey in the 10th over.

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While Raina hit a four through the cover region on the first ball of the over, he hit a six down the ground on the last ball of the over. Having got his eye in, Raina started to dictate terms despite Chennai opening batsman Michael Hussey (35) getting out in the 12th over.

It was on the last delivery of the 15th over that Raina ran a single off Chawla to complete his century. The best of Raina’s seven fours and six sixes had come in the 16th over when he hit two eye-catching sixes down the ground off Kings XI pacer Manpreet Gony. Raina holding his pose on both the occasions for nothing short of a thing of beauty!

Suresh Raina scored maiden IPL century

With the arrival of the slog overs, Raina took on Rajagopal Satish and Praveen Kumar to up the ante in front of his home crowd. Needing 11 runs to complete his century in the last over, Raina hit a magnificent six off Kumar before running a single on the penultimate delivery to reach the three-figure mark.

Raina, who ended up scoring a match-winning 100* (53), had scored as many as 16 half-centuries before scoring a century in the IPL. It is worth mentioning that Raina, 33, is currently the second-highest run-scorer in the biggest T20 league.

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