Chennai Super Kings skipper MS Dhoni has hailed the disciplined bowling attack for a comfortable win over Kings XI Punjab.

Chennai turned in a fine all-round performance for a 24-run win over Punjab.

The spinners - Muttiah Muralitharan, Ravichandran Ashwin and Suresh Raina - were especially impressive in Durban, taking six wickets between them at a cost of just 38 runs to restrict their opponents to 92/8 in pursuit of 117.

"Obviously the way the spinners bowled was brilliant," the Chennai captain said.

"We picked Ashwin for this game, which was his first game, and he was awesome throughout.

"I think Muralitharan put pressure on the opposition nicely. They just wanted to play him through because the target was not big and I think that was a mistake. Because on this kind of track, even the best of spinners, you want to put pressure on them.

"I think Raina also bowled well, but we got off to a good start with (Thilan) Thushara and (Manpreet) Gony, followed by Bala (Lakshmipathy Balaji) at the end."

Set for semis

The win helped Chennai, the 2008 Indian Premier League runners-up, secure their place in the semi-finals of this
season's competition.

But it was a poor effort from Punjab considering they themselves were in a must-win situation and things were looking bright for them after Shanthakumaran Sreesanth (two for 23) and Irfan Pathan (two for 32) helped restrict their opponents, who had only Parthiv Patel (32) among the runs.

Dhoni felt that the frail batting from his side on an inconsistent Kingsmead wicket did not make them a poor team.

He added: "We are a good side, it was just one of those games where we didn't click with our batting in this game.

"We were a batsman short in this game, but in the next game when Haydos (Matthew Hayden) returns and Albie (Morkel) will be fit, we'll be a better batting side."

Hanging on hope

Punjab captain Yuvraj Singh, whose side must now wait for the remaining two games to be concluded on Thursday to learn whether they may be able to sneak into the semi-final courtesy of net run-rate, felt that a lack of partnerships cost them.

He said: "We're pretty disappointed because we really needed that win. Unfortunately we couldn't do it and nobody got going.

"I think we had a good start, but we needed to get a good partnership going. We couldn't get a good partnership and it wasn't a great wicket to bat on, it was two-paced and we can't blame anyone really, you've got to blame yourself."