Chennai Super Kings, under a brand-new captain, enjoyed a winning start to their defence of the IPL title in front of a raucous Chepauk crowd on Friday night. Mustafizur Rahman, who was among four debutants for CSK, took out four of Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s top five in the space of ten balls to set up an eighth successive defeat for RCB in Chennai. Mustafizur Rahman‘s four-wicket haul proved to be the gamechanger in the tightly fought contest.
Mustafizur Rahman and Maheesh Theekshana were CSKs overseas options alongside handing Sameer Rizvi his debut cap and kept Shivam Dube as Impact player for them.
Royal Challengers Bangalore fought hard with the ball to drag a chase of 173 down to the penultimate over but Chennai Super Kings eventually managed to get past the target rather comfortably by a 6-wicket margin
Pitch and Toss
The square boundaries are 65m and 66m respectively and the straight boundary is long at 80m. It looks a great wicket, but there are a few cracks and the looseness around the cracks is worrying, it could lead to some inconsistent bounce, but it’s generally looking good. The ball will turn, there’s some dampness and the spinners could use that. Dew could be a factor, the captain winning the toss would want to bowl first, reckon Kevin Pietersen and Brian Lara, in their pitch report.
RCB skipper Faf Du Plessis won the toss and elected to bat first Cameron Green and Alzarri Joseph were the overseas player with Yash Dayal named as impact Sub for RCB.
CSK under new skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad ,included Rachin Ravindra and Daryll Mitchell to their mix alongside Mustafizur Rahman and Maheesh Theekshana as their overseas options alongside handing Sameer Rizvi his debut cap and kept Shivam Dube as Impact player for them.
RCB’s Jekyll-and-Hyde powerplay
Mustafizur Rahman goes bang-bang once again post powerplay
Debuting for CSK on a Chepauk pitch that is renowned for gripping, the Bangladesh seamer Mustafizur Rehman fit perfectly into the role that the injured Matheesha Pathirana would do. He came in after Faf du Plessis went on a rampage inside the powerplay smacking eight boundaries in his 35 and contributing majorly in a 41-run opening stand with Virat Kohli.
After tackling the movement in the air well, and carving out boundaries over the infield on the offside, the left-arm angle across from Mustafizur Rahman proved a different challenge for du Plessis who ended up slicing it to the deep on the offside where Rachin took a smart running catch. The pacer then topped it up by having Rajat Patidar caught behind in the same over.
When Kohli and Cameron Green began stitching together a partnership, Mustafizur Rahman was brought on again and he delivered once more as Kohli was caught in the deep by a smart relay catch, while Green backed away and was bowled by a cutter. Mustafizur Rahman now had four wickets in his first ten balls for CSK. With Deepak Chahar having Glenn Maxwell caught behind for a duck in between, RCB’s famed top order was left down in the dumps and staring down the barrel.
Rawat and Karthik prop up RCB to 173 after end of 20 overs.
That RCB finished with 173 for 6 was down to a counterattacking 95-run partnership for the sixth wicket off just 50 balls that ended off the last ball of the innings courtesy a Dhoni direct hit.
At one stage, RCB went 28 balls without a boundary, but Rawat then hit two in six balls to set RCB up for the end overs. He then walloped Deshpande for 6,6, 4 in a 25-run 18th over. At the other end, Karthik looked rusty to start with, but mixed power with inventiveness to give RCB’s innings more impetus.
Through a sprightly stand between Karthik and Rawat. The duo took a couple of overs to settle in but began to find their groove soon after. Rawat got going with a couple of boundaries off Chahar while Karthik latched onto loose offerings from Theekshana to hit a six and a four in an over. Together they put on 71 in the last five overs which included a 25-run one against Tushar Deshpande. Rawat was run out off the last ball of the innings, two short of a fifty but a priceless innings nevertheless that augurs well for RCB for the rest of the tournament.
According to Dinesh Karthik who batted on the pitch and deemed it excellent for batting. This was soon after he put on a potentially game-changing partnership of 95 off 50 balls with Anuj Rawat (48) for the sixth wicket. The duo had dragged RCB from 78/5 to a total that was far more respectable than what was likely at that point. Yet, with the pitch behaving differently under lights, CSK would not have minded the target they were asked to chase.
Debutant Rachin Ravindra shines as CSK gallops to 100 runs in first ten overs itself.
CSK had gotten off to a fantastic start in the chase otherwise. The first ten overs saw them get close to 100 with debutant Rachin Ravindra smashing a 15-ball 37 and complemented by cameos from Ruturaj Gaikwad, the new skipper, and Ajinkya Rahane. So RCB’s short-ball plan managed to turn the game around slightly.
After CSK lost Gaikwad in the powerplay, Ravindra lined up RCB’s quicks with pulls and pick-up shots. He even whacked Karn Sharma over midwicket for six, but when he went for another six, he holed out to deep square-leg. Ajinkya Rahane (27 off 19 balls) and Daryl Mitchell (22 off 18) made cameos to take the chase deep in typical CSK style. But when Green snagged Mitchell, CSK still needed 64 off 45 balls.
RCB’s short ball plans takes the game deep for CSK.
On a pitch that was not offering much in terms of assistance for the bowlers, RCB employed the height of Cameron Green and Alzarri Joseph to target CSK with a plethora of short balls or back-of-length deliveries.
These proved to be difficult to put away to the boundary, and even yielded RCB wickets early on. Ajinkya Rahane was out pulling to deep square leg, and so did Daryl Mitchell. In a season that allowed two bouncers per over, RCB took full toll of it in the opening game and made sure that the boundary-flow was halted. And it was important that they did so.
Shivam Dube and Ravindra Jadeja takes CSK to victory by 6 wickets.
CSK still needed 64 off 45 balls. The two-bouncer rule empowered Joseph to run in hard and hit the deck even harder. Shivam Dube, however, just about passed the short-ball test and sealed the chase with six wickets and eight balls to spare.
Shivam Dube and Ravindra Jadeja managed to take CSK home with an unbeaten 66-run stand. While Dube was uncomfortable initially against the short ball, mistiming pulls, but was lucky to see them land in vacant spots. Gradually, along with Jadeja, he found a better way to counter the short ball and even guided a couple of boundaries through the third man area, and topped it off with a massive pulled six as he took CSK over the line.
Presentations and Road Ahead.
Faf Du Plessis the loosing skipper said :
“Always when you play, you get a bit of dip after the six overs. Chennai are a very good team in the middle overs, they squeeze you with their spinners. Maybe we were about 15-20 runs short, the pitch wasn’t as bad as we played in the first 10 overs,”
“They were always ahead in the chase, we tried to squeeze and get a couple of wickets, but in the end we didn’t have enough runs. On this pitch, it is always better to bat first. Last year, the record was very skewed towards teams that batted first,”
“The ball started to grip a bit with our spinners. Really good for Dinesh to set up his season, especially for someone who hasn’t played a lot of cricket. Anuj has shown some great promise for us, he showed great composure for a young guy and great power through the backend,”
Ruturaj Gaikwad the winning skipper said :
“Total control I would say, right from the start (apart) from 2-3 overs. Would’ve loved 10-15 runs less but I think they played really well towards the end. I feel that was a big turning point to get Maxwell and Faf out. We got three quick wickets and it helped us control the next overs, that was the real turning point,”
“I’ve always enjoyed it (captaincy), never felt it as an additional pressure. I had experience on how to handle it, never felt any pressure, obviously had Mahi (MS Dhoni) bhai as well. I think everyone in our squad are natural stroke players, I think even Jinks (Ajinkya Rahane) is playing really positively,”
“Everyone knows their roles and which bowlers to take on. Role clarity really helps. Two-three things to work on, everyone batted well but I think if someone from the top 3 batted till the 15th over it would’ve been even easier,”
Mustafizur Rahman for his 4 for 29 gets player of the match .
The defending champions, under a new captain but very much following the same ethos, are off to a winning start. They extend their superb home record against RCB and it’s now 8-1 in CSK’s favor. Probably not quite the nail-biting thriller that some would’ve hoped for but this grand tournament is off and flying. RCB did very well earlier to post 173 after being in strife at 78/5. It was a fighting total but they would’ve known that they would have to bowl well because the wicket got a bit better to bat on.
CSK’s openers got off to a flier and Rachin, in particular, had a debut to remember as he blasted a 15-ball 37. RCB pulled things back slightly in the middle overs and kept things interesting. There was a barrage of short balls and it got them a couple of wickets but they failed to adapt once it stopped working for them. They kept banging it in short while the batters knew exactly what was coming at them. Although Dube was initially uncomfortable, he hung in there and along with Jadeja, got the job done.
CSK give their fans a win upon returning to their fortress. The packed house might not have had a chance to see their Thala out with the bat but they would’ve gotten what they bargained for. These are two fan-bases that love having a go at each other and the yellow-army take all the spoils tonight.
After much anticipation and build-up, the 17th edition of the IPL is off and running. This is just the beginning of the nearly 2-month long cricket-festival and we’ve got some lip-smacking double-headers coming up over the next couple of days. Double all the glitz and glamour, double all the action and drama and of course, double all the thrills and frills.