A floodlight disruption and a norwester curtailed a promising match, as Chennai Super Kings inched closer to a semi-final berth with a three-run victory against Kolkata Knight Riders via Duckworth-Lewis method in an Indian Premier League match in Kolkata today (May 13). Replying to the Knight Riders' modest total of 149 for 5, that saw Super Kings pacer Makhaya Ntini get a hat-trick, the Chennai team were 55 without loss after eight overs, when a sudden burst of wind resulted in some of the bulbs in each of the four light towers conking off at the Eden Gardens.

The play was immediately halted and the situation turned worse as a norwester with high wind velocity raged accompanied by rains, tossing into the air the tarpaulin sheets, which had been brought in to cover the wicket and the outfield. The Duckworth-Lewis rain rule was called into play and the authorities declared Chennai Super Kings the winner by two runs, based on the complex DL formula, after waiting in vain for 90 minutes for the situation to improve.

The Knight Riders were 46 for 2 after eight overs, but the Chennai side needed to make 53 without losing a wicket for a victory. In the end, a boundary hit by Stephen Fleming (32 not out, 20b, 6x4) with a fine leg glide in the penultimate delivery sent down by Ajit Agarkar proved crucial in sealing the win for the Chennai team, who now have 12 points from 11 matches and look well poised to make it to the last four.

A ball earlier, Ashok Dinda had failed to latch on to a catch offered by Parthiv Patel (19 not out, 28 b, 2x4) at long off. The Knight Riders were now staring down at the wrong end of the barrel, and their hopes of making the cut for the semis look dim. Earlier, the South African Ntini came up with a fine hat-trick to restrict the Kolkata knight Riders to a modest total.

The 30-year-old new ball bowler got rid of Knight Riders skipper Sourav Ganguly with the last ball of his third over, before he was taken off the attack by stand-in skipper Stephen Fleming, who called the shots as regular captain MS Dhoni retired to the dressing room with an injured finger.

Ntini came back in the 17th over and immediately struck a double blow, by showing the door to Debabrata Das (27) and David Hussey (0) with his first two balls, to complete the third hat-trick of the tourney after pacer L Balaji and leg spinner Amit Mishra.

He finished with highly impressive figures of 4-0-21-4. For the  Knight Riders, Pakistani left hander Salman Butt (73; 84b, 10x4, 1x6) deftly anchored the innings after the hosts lost two early wickets and steadied the ship by putting on 86 runs for the third wicket alongside the young Debabrata Das.

Ntini broke the rollicking stand by castling Das with a low full toss, reducing Knight Riders to 114/3 in 16.1 overs. The Knight Riders received a further setback as Ntini welcomed the dangerous Hussey with an angled delivery, which the Australian played across the line and saw his off stump go cartwheeling.

The twin blows threw a spanner in the Knight Riders bid to post a huge total and in the end they could only set an asking rate of 7.50 runs for the visitors. Butt, who delighted the crowd with delectable shots all round the park, departed an over after Ntini's feat that had initially gone unnoticed with even the official scorer missing it.

Earlier, the Knight Riders' yet again made a bumpy start losing their first two wickets within the opening five overs on a track which played slow initially but eased out as the innings progressed. Ntini got the first breakthrough in his second over as opener Mohammed Hafeez (6) failed to keep a flick down and Manpreet Gony had little difficulty in taking the catch at fine-leg.

Skipper Sourav Ganguly (2), looking tentative from the beginning, survived only eight balls. The Prince of Kolkata went for a mighty heave without going behind the line of the ball and played too early to see his middle stump knocked down as the Knight Riders became 28/2 in five overs.

Ganguly's aggression seemed needless as Butt had picked up two back-to-back boundaries earlier in the over.  (With inputs from PTI)