CCL 2025: Semi-final 2 Chennai Rhinos give Karnataka Bulldozers a royal pummeling; in final after a decade

The second semi-final was, obviously, the big game of the day, with the Karnataka Bulldozers facing the Chennai Rhinos in the Heritage City, Mysuru. The Bulldozers came in having defeated the Rhinos in the group stage and with the support of the home crowd. But that was not going to be enough, as a very spirited Rhinos team went on to demolish the Bulldozers. 

Vikranth won the toss and chose to bowl first, which is what would have been Kiccha Sudeep’s decision too had it gone his way. Sent in to bat, the Bulldozers got off to a slow but steady start, with openers Darling Krishna upping the tempo every now and then. The partnership was broken in the 6th over, with the score at 60, when Krishna was clean bowled by Aadhav. While they lost a few more wickets along the way, the Bulldozers managed a respectable 111 for 5 in their first set of 10 overs.

After the toss, Sudeep had said that Chennai has always been a tough side to play and they lived up to that image. Chasing this target, they fell short by 6, ending their innings on 105, largely due to Vikranth’s unbeaten knock of 63, what with Ramana departing for a duck. Dasarathi also did his bit in helping the skipper to get them as close to the target.

Returning for their second innings, the Bulldozers needed to equal or better their first innings score to set up a decent target that they could defend. But for Suneel Raoh, the rest of the Bulldozers bowlers had been expensive. Bachchan and Karthik opened, with the former departing soon and bringing skipper Sudeep to the crease. The superstar, of course, did not disappoint his Mysuru fans, in his knock of 23 runs, which he got to after two reprieves, when Rhinos fielders failed to hold on to catches.

Krishna then joined Karthik, and he got to work immediately, but fell scoring only 28. Rajeev was next to depart on a duck, with the score at 84 only. Manjunath then took charge and hit a blistering 35 of only 11 balls, which took the Bulldozers to 123 for the loss of 5 and a final total of 129, setting a target of 130 for the Rhinos.

From a terrible start where the Rhinos had lost 2 wickets with no runs on the scoreboard, they then went on the offensive, belting the Bulldozers bowlers to all corners of the SKN Wadiyar Stadium. Vikranth and Ajay were at the forefront of this attack, as the Bulldozers bowlers were left bewildered at just what struck them. They had no idea how to rein in these two or break their partnership. Vikranth and Ajay's stand remained unbroken, as they sealed the deal and will now face Punjab De Sher in the final on Sunday. The last time that the Rhinos were in a CCL finale was in 2015. 

Catch all the CCL action live on JioHotstar.