Raina reached his 50 in just 32 balls with the help of 5 boundaries and a couple of sixes and helped revive the Chennai innings after the hosts lost opener Wriddhiman Saha early.
However, Piyush Chawla broke the 55-run stand between Raina and Michael Hussey by dismissing the latter when Hussey (35) was stumped after some good work behind the stumps by keeper Gurkeerat Singh.
Soon after, Chennai lost skipper MS Dhoni as well when he fell short of his crease while attempting a cheeky single and was run out.
The Raina-Hussey duo revived the innings after Chennai suffered their first blow in the form of Saha, who was caught at deep square leg by Shaun Marsh off the bowling of Parvinder Awana.
Saha (18) and Hussey put up a decent 27-run partnership for the opening wicket after Chennai Super Kings skipper MS Dhoni won the toss and decided to bat.
While the Super Kings head into this match with an unchanged playing XI from the last match, Punjab bring in R Sathish for Manan Vohra and Luke Pomersbach in place of Azhar Mahmood.
Struggling for form but showing some spark at the same time, Kings XI Punjab will have to brace up for another massive challenge when they take on former champions and table-toppers Chennai Super Kings.
Punjab ended just four runs shy of what could have been a morale-lifting win over the Mumbai Indians in their most recent match.
Chennai, on the other hand, don't seem to be doing anything wrong in what has been a smooth campaign so far. Leaders by quite a distance on the points table after eight wins from 10 matches, they are the team to beat this IPL.
Teams:
Chennai Super Kings: Wriddhiman Saha, Michael Hussey, Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni (Capt. & wk), Subramaniam Badrinath, Ravindra Jadeja, Dwayne Bravo, Albie Morkel, Chris Morris, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohit Sharma
Kings XI Punjab: Shaun Marsh, Mandeep Singh, David Hussey (Capt.), David Miller, Luke Pomersbach, Gurkeerat Singh (wk), R Sathish, Piyush Chawla, Manpreet Gony, Praveen Kumar, Parvinder Awana.
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