Chennai Super Kings 176 for 4 (Ravindra 37, Dube 34*, Green 2-27) won Royal Challengers Bengaluru 173 for 6 (Rawat 48, Karthik 38*, du Plessis 35, Mustafizur 4-29) with six wickets
Chennai Super Kings, under brand new captain, enjoyed a winning start to their IPL title defense in front of a raucous Chepauk crowd on Friday night. Mustafizur Rahman, who was among the four debutants for CSK, took out four of Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s top five in the space of ten balls to inflict an eighth straight defeat for RCB in Chennai.
Rachin Ravindra, who was playing his IPL debut, also played his part in the win, with 37 off 15 balls at a strike rate of 246.66 on a pitch that slowed down later in the night. In his first game as CSK captain, Ruturaj Gaikwad started with first-ball fours but RCB’s Impact Player Yash Dayal cut his innings to 15 in CSK’s chase of 174.
Cameron Green and Alzarri Joseph then briefly silenced the Chepauk crowd with their contrasting styles. While Green put slower cutters on the court, Joseph operated at high speeds and created sharp bounce, taking the court out of the equation.
Shivam Dube, who was returning from injury, replaced Mustafizur as the Impact Player for CSK and worked 7 off 13 balls. But he then stepped up to take CSK home with an unbeaten 34 off 28 balls along with Ravindra Jadeja, who scored an unbeaten 25 off 17. MS Dhoni failed to bat in the chase, but perhaps that had he hoped when he handed over the keys to the CSK kingdom to Gaikwad.
Jekyll-and-Hyde powerplay by RCB
After opting to bat in what was his first IPL game as an opposition player in Chennai, Faf du Plessis flew out of the blocks, hitting seven fours in the first three overs. He locked onto whatever width Deepak Chahar and Tushar Deshpande offered, repeatedly pumping them over the offside infield. Gaikwad got into the act and pushed extra cover back to deep cover and, on cue, Mustafizur had du Plessis hook Rachin Ravindra there for 35 off 21 balls. Three balls later, Mustafizur found some extra bounce to get Rajat Patidar to bowl for a duck. Then in the final over of the powerplay, Chahar got Glenn Maxwell to guide him straight into Dhoni’s gloves, also for a duck.
After being on 37 for no loss in the first four overs, RCB lost three wickets for five runs in the next two.
Mustafizur goes bang-bang again
Mustafizur then returned in the 12th over and dismissed Virat Kohli and Green in the space of three balls. While Kohli dragged a delivery to deep midwicket for 21 off 20 balls, Green was bowling a whippy cutter for 18 off 22 balls. It was Mustafizur’s second double goal.
Mustafizur might not have played had CSK’s death-over specialist Matheesha Pathirana been in form. He finished with figures of 4-0-29-4 on a night where the other two bowlers in his team – Chahar and Deshpande – went past nine an over. When Patherana returns to action, CSK will have a happy selection headache.
Rawat and Karthik support RCB
RCB finishing at 173 for 6 led to a counter-attacking partnership of 95 runs for the sixth wicket off just 50 balls which ended from the last ball of the innings thanks to a direct hit from Dhoni.
At one stage, RCB went 28 balls without a boundary, but Rawat then hit two off six balls to set RCB up for the final overs. He then bowled Deshpande for 6.6, 4 in an 18th over of 25 runs. At the other end, Karthik looked rusty at the start but combined power with ingenuity to add more impetus to RCB’s innings.
Dube does the job for CSK
After CSK lost Gaikwad in the powerplay, Ravindra lined up RCB’s quicks with pulls and pick-up shots. He even hit Karn Sharma over midwicket for a six, but when he went for another six, he holed out at deep square leg.
Ajinkya Rahane (27 off 19 balls) and Daryl Mitchell (22 off 18) cameos to take the chase deep in typical CSK style. But when Green grabbed Mitchell, CSK still needed 64 off 45 balls. The two springboard rule empowered Joseph to run hard and hit the deck even harder. Dube, however, almost passed the small-ball test and sealed the chase with six wickets off eight balls.