Chahal performs hat trick in Punjab win that ends Chennai's hopes of IPL playoffs

CHENNAI, India (AP) — Chennai Super Kings became the first team to fall out of contention for the Indian Premier League playoffs as Yuzvendra Chahal performed a hat trick in Punjab Kings’ four-wicket win on Wednesday.

Half-centuries from captain Shreyas Iyer (72) and opening batter Prabhsimran Singh (54) anchored Punjab to 194-6 and propelled their team to No. 2 on the table with 13 points.

Leg-spinner Chahal picked up all four of his wickets in the penultimate over to finish with 4-32 as Chennai stumbled to 190 all out in 19.2 overs.

A dismal season for five-time champion Chennai saw them lose five home games and it is the third time in the last four seasons that they have missed the playoffs.

Last-place Chennai started the season with win against Mumbai Indians at home before they lost five straight games. They ended their losing streak by beating Lucknow Super Giants but again lost three consecutive games and have just four points after 10 matches.

Iyer smartly controlled Punjab’s solid run-chase in the company of Singh with both batters hitting 10 fours and seven sixes in between them.

Priyansh Arya (23) provided a brisk start of 44 off 28 balls before he was caught behind of a short ball from Khaleel Ahmed in the fifth over.

Chennai struck back briefly in the middle overs when Singh slog swept spinner Noor Ahmad and was caught at mid-wicket and Maheesh Pathirana dismissed Nehal Wadhera in the 15th over.

But Iyer upped the ante by smacking 20 runs in Pathirana’s next over that featured two straight sixes. Shashank Singh smashed two sixes in his 12-ball knock of 23 before he was spectacularly caught by Dewald Brevis at deep mid-wicket.

With only three required for victory Punjab lost two more wickets before Marco Jansen raised the victory with a winning boundary. Iyer dragged Pathirana’s full pitched delivery back onto his stumps which ended a scintillating 41-ball knock and Suryansh Shedge was caught at mid-wicket against Ahmed.

Sam Curran had brought Chennai close to breaching the 200-run mark for the only second time this season, but once he got caught behind for 88 off 47 balls in the 18th over, Chennai folded quickly against Chahal.

Iyer resorted to the experience of Chahal for the penultimate over after Punjab was penalized for slow over-rate and had to deliver the final two overs with five fielders inside the 30-yard circle.

Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni smacked Chahal for a straight six off the first ball before he holed out at long off of the next delivery. Chahal then dismissed Deepak Hooda, Anshul Kamboj and Khaleel Ahmed off successive balls to complete his hat trick.

Chennai’s struggle at the top-order continued when they lost three wickets inside the batting powerplay that included the key wicket of Ravindra Jadeja (17) who feathered spinner Harpreet Brar behind the wickets.

But Curran and Brevis (32) put on 78 runs and raised Chennai hopes of a strong total before Brevis was bowled by Afghanistan fast bowler Azmatullah Omarzai just before the death overs.

Curran smacked Shedge for 26 runs in the 16th over that included two sixes and two fours before he got caught behind in the next over while trying to leave Jansen’s short ball and the lower order collapsed against Chahal’s brilliant over.

AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket

Chennai Super Kings' Sam Curran plays a shot during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Chennai Super Kings and Punjab Kings' at M. A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, India, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Photo/R. Parthibhan)

Chennai Super Kings' Sam Curran celebrates after scoring fifty runs during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Chennai Super Kings and Punjab Kings' at M. A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, India, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Photo/R. Parthibhan)

Chennai Super Kings' Dewald Brevis attempt to save six during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Chennai Super Kings and Punjab Kings' at M. A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, India, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Photo/R. Parthibhan)

Chennai Super Kings' Noor Ahmad, left and Chennai Super Kings' Mahendra Singh Dhoni celebrates the dismissal of Punjab Kings' Prabhsimran Singh during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Chennai Super Kings and Punjab Kings' at M. A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, India, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Photo/R. Parthibhan)

Punjab Kings' captain Shreyas Iyer plays a shot during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Chennai Super Kings and Punjab Kings' at M. A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, India, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Photo/R. Parthibhan)

Punjab Kings' Prabhsimran Singh plays a shot during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Chennai Super Kings and Punjab Kings' at M. A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, India, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Photo/R. Parthibhan)

Chennai Super Kings' Khaleel Ahmed celebrates the dismissal of Punjab Kings' Suryansh Shedge during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Chennai Super Kings and Punjab Kings' at M. A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, India, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Photo/R. Parthibhan)

Punjab Kings' Yuzvendra Chahal, right, celebrates the dismissal of Chennai Super Kings' Noor Ahmad with his team mates during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Chennai Super Kings and Punjab Kings' at M. A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, India, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Photo/R. Parthibhan)

Punjab Kings' Josh Inglis, right, shake hand with Chennai Super Kings' Mahendra Singh Dhoni after they won during the Indian Premier League cricket match against them at M. A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, India, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Photo/R. Parthibhan)

Punjab Kings' captain Shreyas Iyer bowled out during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Chennai Super Kings and Punjab Kings' at M. A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, India, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Photo/R. Parthibhan)

Punjab Kings' Yuzvendra Chahal celebrates after taking a hat trick during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Chennai Super Kings and Punjab Kings' at M. A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, India, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Photo/R. Parthibhan)

Punjab Kings' Yuzvendra Chahal, right, celebrates the dismissal of Chennai Super Kings' Mahendra Singh Dhoni , left, during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Chennai Super Kings and Punjab Kings' at M. A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, India, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Photo/R. Parthibhan)

Punjab Kings' Yuzvendra Chahal celebrates the dismissal of Chennai Super Kings' Noor Ahmad during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Chennai Super Kings and Punjab Kings' at M. A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, India, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Photo/R. Parthibhan)

ST. LOUIS (AP) — World champions Ilia Malinin and the ice dance duo of Madison Chock and Evan Bates will anchor one of the strongest U.S. Figure Skating teams in history when they head to Italy for the Milan Cortina Olympics in less than a month.

Malinin, fresh off his fourth straight national title, will be the prohibitive favorite to follow in the footsteps of Nathan Chen by delivering another men's gold medal for the American squad when he steps on the ice at the Milano Ice Skating Arena.

Chock and Bates, who won their record-setting seventh U.S. title Saturday night, also will be among the Olympic favorites, as will world champion Alysa Liu and women's teammate Amber Glenn, fresh off her third consecutive national title.

U.S. Figure Skating announced its full squad of 16 athletes for the Winter Games during a made-for-TV celebration Sunday.

"I'm just so excited for the Olympic spirit, the Olympic environment," Malinin said. “Hopefully go for that Olympic gold.”

Malinin will be joined on the men's side by Andrew Torgashev, the all-or-nothing 24-year-old from Coral Springs, Florida, and Maxim Naumov, the 24-year-old from Simsbury, Connecticut, who fulfilled the hopes of his late parents by making the Olympic team.

Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova were returning from a talent camp in Kansas when their American Airlines flight collided with a military helicopter and crashed into the icy Potomac River in January 2025. One of the last conversations they had with their son was about what it would take for him to follow in their footsteps by becoming an Olympian.

“We absolutely did it,” Naumov said. “Every day, year after year, we talked about the Olympics. It means so much in our family. It's what I've been thinking about since I was 5 years old, before I even know what to think. I can't put this into words.”

Chock and Bates helped the Americans win team gold at the Beijing Games four years ago, but they finished fourth — one spot out of the medals — in the ice dance competition. They have hardly finished anywhere but first in the years since, winning three consecutive world championships and the gold medal at three straight Grand Prix Finals.

U.S. silver medalists Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik also made the dance team, as did the Canadian-born Christina Carreira, who became eligible for the Olympics in November when her American citizenship came through, and Anthony Ponomarenko.

Liu was picked for her second Olympic team after briefly retiring following the Beijing Games. She had been burned out by years of practice and competing, but stepping away seemed to rejuvenate the 20-year-old from Clovis, California, and she returned to win the first world title by an American since Kimmie Meissner stood atop the podium two decades ago.

Now, the avant-garde Liu will be trying to help the U.S. win its first women's medal since Sasha Cohen in Turin in 2006, and perhaps the first gold medal since Sarah Hughes triumphed four years earlier at the Salt Lake City Games.

Her biggest competition, besides a powerful Japanese contingent, could come from her own teammates: Glenn, a first-time Olympian, has been nearly unbeatable the past two years, while 18-year-old Isabeau Levito is a former world silver medalist.

"This was my goal and my dream and it just feels so special that it came true,” said Levito, whose mother is originally from Milan.

The two pairs spots went to Ellie Kam and Danny O'Shea, the U.S. silver medalists, and the team of Emily Chan and Spencer Howe.

The top American pairs team, two-time reigning U.S. champions Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov, were hoping that the Finnish-born Efimova would get her citizenship approved in time to compete in Italy. But despite efforts by the Skating Club of Boston, where they train, and the help of their U.S. senators, she did not receive her passport by the selection deadline.

“The importance and magnitude of selecting an Olympic team is one of the most important milestones in an athlete's life,” U.S. Figure Skating CEO Matt Farrell said, "and it has such an impact, and while there are sometimes rules, there is also a human element to this that we really have to take into account as we make decisions and what's best going forward from a selection process.

“Sometimes these aren't easy," Farrell said, “and this is not the fun part.”

The fun is just beginning, though, for the 16 athletes picked for the powerful American team.

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

Amber Glenn competes during the women's free skating competition at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

Alysa Liu skates during the "Making Team USA" performance at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

Maxim Naumov skates during the "Making Team USA" performance at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

Madison Chock and Evan Bates skate during the "Making the Team" performance at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

Gold medalist Ilia Malinin arrives for the metal ceremony after the men's free skate competition at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)