Indian Premier League
Balaji played for the Chennai Super Kings team in the 1st 3 editions of the IPL starting from the 2008 Indian Premier League. On 10 May 2008, he picked up the first hat-trick of the IPL tournament in the match against Kings XI Punjab at Chennai, and rounded off the evening with a match-winning five-wicket haul. His tournament was to end on a low as he bowled the final over to Shane Warne and Sohail Tanvir, with the latter hitting the winning runs off the final ball. Since his successful spinal operation in England by Prof. John Dowell he has returned to full form. Balaji has been notably consistent for the economy rate in all T20 matches in the IPL Chennai Super Kings as the normal matches of T20 seldom had run chases below or near 130 . He has not done much in the batting side of IPL.
In the second season of the Indian Premier League, he picked four wickets against Rajasthan Royals on 30 April 2009, leading the Chennai Super Kings to victory.
In the 3rd season of IPL, Balaji played 7 games and picked up 7 wickets. After Chennai Super Kings won the tournament and went on to play the ACLT20, Balaji played most of the games in the tournament and his economical bowling was praised by the captain of the Indian team, MS Dhoni and was listed by him as one of the reasons to CSK's victory in the tournament.
In the fourth season of the IPL, he was purchased by Kolkata Knight Riders
Read more about this topic: Lakshmipathy Balaji
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