Australian allrounder Shane Watson may not have troubled the scorers, but his Chennai Super Kings side still marched into the Indian Premier League final after Faf du Plessis smashed a blistering 67 not out to fashion a thrilling two-wicket victory against Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Chasing 140 to reach the final for the seventh time, two-time champions Chennai were struggling at 6-62 when South African Du Plessis mounted a spectacular counter-attack to see them home with five balls to spare at Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium.
The opener aptly scored the winning run with his fourth six off Bhuneshwar Kumar's first ball of the last over.
Hyderabad can still make Sunday's final, for which they will need to beat the winner of Thursday's eliminator between Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals.
The table-toppers had made it a habit of defending low totals in the group stage and once again their bowlers blew away the top half of Chennai's batting order to give them an upper hand.
Queenslander Watson was himself dismissed by Kumar for zero with an impeccable away swinger in the first over.
Siddharth Kaul (2-32) then dismissed Suresh Raina (22) and Ambati Rayudu in successive deliveries to force Chennai onto the back foot in the fourth over.
In-form Afghan spinner Rashid Khan (2-11) deceived MS Dhoni (nine) with a googly and dismissed Dwayne Bravo for seven to further peg back Chennai.
But watching the meltdown from the other end, Du Plessis took the onus on himself to put Chennai's chase back on track and he got good support from number 10 batsman Shardul Thakur, who made 15 not out from five balls.
Wary of the dew factor later in the evening, skipper Dhoni had earlier opted to field against 2016 champions Hyderabad and paceman Deepak Chahar gave Chennai a perfect start by dismissing opener Shikhar Dhawan for a first ball duck.
Hyderabad's Kiwi captain Kane Williamson hit four crisp boundaries in his 24 but his side kept losing wickets at regular intervals.
Yusuf Pathan contributed 24 but it was Carlos Brathwaite's 43 not out from 29 balls that helped Hyderabad post 139-7, although it was not enough in the end.
