On the night of 30 May 2014, Wankhede Stadium saw 428 runs in 40 overs. Two batters made 209 of them off just 83 balls between them, and the side that put up the second-highest powerplay total the IPL had ever seen still lost by 24 runs. Qualifier 2 of the 2014 season between Kings XI Punjab and Chennai Super Kings is rarely the first match fans name when they list IPL classics. It may well be the purest one: a knockout game decided by two of the most violent innings the tournament has produced, played back to back on the same pitch.
Virender Sehwag's 122 off 58 balls took Kings XI Punjab to 226/6. Suresh Raina answered with 87 off 25 and had Chennai Super Kings at 100/2 after six overs, ahead of the rate in a chase of 227. Then came a mix-up, a direct hit and one of the most dramatic momentum swings in IPL playoff history. More than a decade later, the scorecard still reads like a misprint.
The Night Wankhede Caught Fire
The Setting: A Season of Punjab Fireworks
Kings XI Punjab arrived in the 2014 playoffs as the best team in the league. They had won 11 of their 14 league games, two clear of both Kolkata Knight Riders and Chennai Super Kings, playing an all-out attacking brand of cricket built around Glenn Maxwell, David Miller and an opener in the last great chapter of his career, Virender Sehwag. Captain George Bailey had turned a franchise that had never reached a final into the most feared batting side of 2014.
Then came the stumble. In Qualifier 1 at Eden Gardens on 27 May 2014, Kolkata Knight Riders beat Punjab by 28 runs, and Umesh Yadav was named Player of the Match. Punjab got the second chance the playoff format gives the top two. Their opponents would be Chennai, who had beaten Mumbai Indians by seven wickets in the Eliminator at the Brabourne Stadium on 28 May 2014, with Raina named Player of the Match. Chennai were two-time champions in 2010 and 2011 and had reached the 2012 and 2013 finals. They knew knockouts better than anyone.
Sehwag's Last Great Masterpiece
MS Dhoni won the toss and chose to field at Wankhede Stadium. It was the obvious call at a ground where chasing has always felt possible. Sehwag made it look like a mistake within half an hour.
He opened alongside Manan Vohra and attacked from the first over. Punjab reached 70 without loss in the powerplay, and Sehwag had 42 of those runs off 18 balls. Ishwar Pandey's second over, the fourth of the innings, went for 24. Ashish Nehra's second over cost 14 and Mohit Sharma's second cost 13. Sehwag reached his fifty off 21 balls in the seventh over. On 30 May 2014 he was 35 years old, and for one night he batted like he had in the Delhi of 2008.
The most telling part of the innings came in the middle overs, when Chennai's spinners usually tighten things up. Against Ravindra Jadeja, Sehwag scored 39 off 15 balls. Against R Ashwin he made 19 off 10. Vohra played the anchor, scoring 34 off 31, and the opening stand reached 110 before Vohra fell in the 11th over, caught by Raina off Pandey. Maxwell flashed 13 off 6 and was also caught by Raina, at 148/2 after 13 overs.
Sehwag brought up his hundred off 50 balls in the 16th over. When Nehra finally had him caught by Faf du Plessis off the first ball of the 19th over, Punjab were 211/3. His final line read 122 off 58, with 12 fours and 8 sixes. Miller's 38 off 19 had kept the scoring going at the other end, and despite a late flurry of wickets, Punjab finished on 226/6.
Raina's Twenty-Five Balls of Fury
A target of 227 in a knockout should have broken any side. Instead, Chennai's reply started with something even more remarkable.
Mitchell Johnson removed du Plessis off the second legal ball of the chase, caught by Bailey, with the score on 1/1. Raina walked in, and what followed is still the most savage start to a run chase in IPL playoff history. He hit 26 off 9 balls against Sandeep Sharma and 21 off 6 against Johnson. Then came Parvinder Awana's second over, the sixth of the innings.
It went: six, six, four, four, a no-ball dispatched for four, four, four. That is 33 runs from one over, and Raina reached his fifty off just 16 balls. At the time, only Yusuf Pathan's 15-ball fifty earlier that same season was faster in the IPL. Dwayne Smith had fallen for 7 off 11 balls, bowled by Sandeep at 67/2, but it barely mattered. After six overs Chennai were 100/2. The asking rate was barely over nine, with eight wickets in hand and Raina on 87 off 24.
The Run-Out That Changed Everything
Off the first ball of the seventh over, bowled by Karanveer Singh, came a hesitation and a sprint, and George Bailey completed the run-out. Raina was run out for 87 off 25 balls, with 12 fours and 6 sixes. Chennai were 100/3. The innings that should have won the match ended without a dismissal by a bowler.
The collapse that followed was slow at first, then sudden. Brendon McCullum struggled to 11 off 16 before being run out by Maxwell at 140/4 at the end of the 12th over. Awana, who had been taken for 33 in his previous over, struck with the first ball of his next: Jadeja was caught by Johnson for 27. Four balls later David Hussey was caught by Sehwag for 1. Chennai had gone from 140/3 to 142/6 in six balls. Between overs 7 and 16, Chennai managed only 64 runs. Axar Patel, then a 20-year-old left-arm spinner, bowled four overs for just 23 runs and stumped Ashwin, which may be the most underrated spell in a 428-run match.
Dhoni struck 42 not out off 31 balls, including three sixes, the last of them off the final ball. But Chennai needed 63 off the last 24 balls and managed 38. They finished on 202/7, and Punjab won by 24 runs to reach their first IPL final.
The Data Behind the Madness
Innings Comparison: Two Masterclasses, One Winner
| Metric | Virender Sehwag (KXIP) | Suresh Raina (CSK) |
|---|---|---|
| Runs | 122 | 87 |
| Balls | 58 | 25 |
| Strike rate | 210.34 | 348.00 |
| Fours / Sixes | 12 / 8 | 12 / 6 |
| Fifty reached in | 21 balls | 16 balls |
| Dismissal | c du Plessis b Nehra | run out (Bailey) |
| Team score at dismissal | 211/3 (18.1 ov) | 100/3 (6.1 ov) |
| Share of team total | 54.0% | 43.1% |
Sehwag scored more of his team's runs, and Raina scored his faster. The real difference was timing: Sehwag batted until the 19th over, while Raina was gone in the seventh.
Phase-by-Phase Breakdown
| Phase | KXIP (batting first) | CSK (chasing) |
|---|---|---|
| Powerplay (overs 1-6) | 70/0 | 100/2 |
| Middle (overs 7-15) | 97/2 (167/2 after 15) | 64/4 (164/6 after 16)* |
| Death | 59/4 in overs 16-20 | 38/1 in overs 17-20 |
| Final total | 226/6 | 202/7 |
*Chennai's middle phase is shown for overs 7-16 to reflect the window in which the match was lost.
Chennai won the powerplay by 30 runs and still lost the match by 24. That 54-run swing all came after Raina's run-out, and 42 runs of it came in overs 7 to 16 alone, when Punjab scored 106 to Chennai's 64.
The Bowling Story
| Bowler | Team | Overs | Runs | Wickets | Economy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Axar Patel | KXIP | 4 | 23 | 1 | 5.75 |
| Karanveer Singh | KXIP | 4 | 32 | 0 | 8.00 |
| Ishwar Pandey | CSK | 4 | 35 | 1 | 8.75 |
| Mitchell Johnson | KXIP | 4 | 44 | 1 | 11.00 |
| R Ashwin | CSK | 4 | 44 | 1 | 11.00 |
| Mohit Sharma | CSK | 4 | 46 | 1 | 11.50 |
| Ravindra Jadeja | CSK | 4 | 48 | 0 | 12.00 |
| Ashish Nehra | CSK | 4 | 51 | 2 | 12.75 |
| Parvinder Awana | KXIP | 4 | 59 | 2 | 14.75 |
Awana went for the most runs on the night and still took two of the most important wickets. Axar was the only bowler on either side to go at under eight an over.
Where Sehwag's 122 Sits in Playoff History
| Rank | Batter | Score | Balls | Season | Match |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shubman Gill | 129 | 60 | 2023 | Qualifier 2 vs MI |
| 2 | Virender Sehwag | 122 | 58 | 2014 | Qualifier 2 vs CSK |
| 3 | Shane Watson | 117 | 57 | 2018 | Final vs SRH |
| 4 | Wriddhiman Saha | 115 | 55 | 2014 | Final vs KKR |
| 5 | Murali Vijay | 113 | 58 | 2012 | Qualifier 2 vs DD |
| 6 | Rajat Patidar | 112 | 54 | 2022 | Eliminator vs LSG |
Source: Cricsheet ball-by-ball data, IPL 2008-2025 playoffs.
For nine years, from 2014 to 2023, Sehwag's 122 was the highest individual score in IPL playoff history. Gill's 129 against Mumbai Indians at Ahmedabad in 2023 finally passed it. Sehwag's innings was also the second and last hundred of his IPL career, following his 119 off 56 for Delhi Daredevils against Deccan Chargers in 2011. He finished his IPL career with 2,728 runs in 104 matches. Raina, by contrast, made 5,536 IPL runs in 200 matches. His only IPL hundred, an unbeaten 100 off 53 at Chepauk in 2013, had come against the same Punjab side.
The Powerplay Record That Stood for Three Years
Chennai's 100/2 in the first six overs on 30 May 2014 was the highest powerplay total in IPL history at the time. It stood until Kolkata Knight Riders made 105 without loss against Royal Challengers Bangalore in Bengaluru on 7 May 2017. Through the end of 2025, it still ranked fourth on the all-time list, behind only Sunrisers Hyderabad's 125 against Delhi Capitals in 2024, Sunrisers' 107 against Lucknow Super Giants in 2024, and that 2017 Kolkata effort. Through 2025, it was still the highest powerplay total by a team that went on to lose.
Legacy Impact: What This Means Today
The 2014 Qualifier 2 is the original proof of an idea modern T20 analysts now take for granted: in a big chase, timing matters as much as scoring rate. Chennai scored at nearly 17 an over through the powerplay, faster than any side had before, and lost because the dismissal that followed ruined the platform for the middle overs. When teams like Sunrisers Hyderabad pushed T20 batting into new territory in 2024, the debate about whether all-out powerplay aggression wins knockouts kept coming back to games like this one.
The match also connects directly to the IPL of today. Dhoni, who finished on 42 not out that night, is still part of the Chennai squad, now led by Ruturaj Gaikwad. Axar Patel, the 20-year-old whose 4-0-23-1 held the middle overs together, went on to become captain of Delhi Capitals. Nehra, who finally removed Sehwag, is now head coach of Gujarat Titans. Jadeja, who went for 48 in his four overs that night, has since been traded to Rajasthan Royals. David Miller, whose 38 off 19 helped push Punjab past 220, plays for Delhi Capitals, and Sandeep Sharma, who bowled Smith in that frantic powerplay, is part of the Rajasthan attack. Five players from that night appear in IPL 2026 squads, which makes the 30 May 2014 game a living link between the IPL's first era and its present one.
For Punjab, though, the story ended in heartbreak two days later. At the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on 1 June 2014, Saha's 115 off 55 gave them 199/4 in the final, but Manish Pandey's 94 led Kolkata to a three-wicket win and their second title. Punjab, renamed Punjab Kings in 2021, would not reach another IPL final until 2025, eleven years later, when they lost to Royal Challengers Bengaluru. It is hard not to see Sehwag's 122 as the peak of a franchise that has spent a decade chasing that night's form. Our full reconstruction of the 2014 final tells the rest of that story.
The match is also a reminder of why CricMind built the Oracle the way it did. A model that only tracked run rate would have given Chennai a strong winning chance at 100/2 after six overs, with eight wickets in hand and a required rate just over nine. The Oracle's live layers weight wickets in hand, partnership stability and the quality of the batters still to come against the bowlers still to bowl. These are exactly the factors that shifted in the moment Raina's stumps were broken. In a game like the 2014 Qualifier 2, the scoreboard can make a chase look on track while the underlying numbers have already turned.
Three Takeaways
- Momentum in T20 depends on who is batting, not just how fast. Chennai were 30 runs ahead of Punjab after the powerplay and lost by 24. With Raina at the crease, they scored 99 runs in less than six overs. In the next 10 overs without him, they scored 64.
- Fielding decided a match full of record-breaking batting. Two run-outs, Raina's and McCullum's, plus Raina's own two catches earlier in the evening, swung a game that produced 428 runs. Bailey's run-out of Raina is arguably the most valuable single piece of fielding in Kings XI Punjab history.
- Great innings in losing causes are still remembered. Raina's 87 off 25 balls did not win the match, but it is still one of the defining knocks of his IPL career, as famous as many innings that won trophies.
FAQ
Who won the IPL 2014 Qualifier 2 between KXIP and CSK?
Kings XI Punjab beat Chennai Super Kings by 24 runs at Wankhede Stadium on 30 May 2014. Punjab made 226/6, and Chennai were held to 202/7 in reply. Virender Sehwag was named Player of the Match.
How many runs did Virender Sehwag score in the 2014 Qualifier 2?
Sehwag scored 122 off 58 balls, hitting 12 fours and 8 sixes. He reached his fifty in 21 balls and his hundred in 50 balls. It was the highest individual score in IPL playoff history until Shubman Gill's 129 in the 2023 Qualifier 2.
How fast did Suresh Raina score his 87 against Kings XI Punjab?
Raina made 87 off 25 balls at a strike rate of 348, with 12 fours and 6 sixes. He reached his fifty in 16 balls and took 33 runs off a single Parvinder Awana over. He was run out by George Bailey off the first ball of the seventh over.
What was CSK's powerplay score in the 2014 Qualifier 2?
Chennai scored 100/2 in the first six overs. It was the highest powerplay total in IPL history at the time and stood as the record until Kolkata Knight Riders made 105/0 in 2017. Through 2025, it remains the highest powerplay score by a team that lost the match.
Who won the IPL 2014 final after this match?
Kolkata Knight Riders beat Kings XI Punjab by three wickets in the final at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on 1 June 2014. Wriddhiman Saha's 115 off 55 balls for Punjab was outdone by Manish Pandey's 94, which won Kolkata their second IPL title.
Which players from the 2014 Qualifier 2 are part of IPL 2026?
Five players from that match feature in IPL 2026 squads: MS Dhoni (Chennai Super Kings), Axar Patel (Delhi Capitals captain), David Miller (Delhi Capitals), Ravindra Jadeja (Rajasthan Royals) and Sandeep Sharma (Rajasthan Royals).
What was the total match aggregate in KXIP vs CSK Qualifier 2 in 2014?
The two teams scored 428 runs between them across 40 overs: 226 by Kings XI Punjab and 202 by Chennai Super Kings. At the time it was one of the highest match aggregates in IPL playoff history.