CSK was beaten by PBKS by seven wickets.
The 49th Indian Premier League match between the Chennai Super Kings and the Punjab Kings took place at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai and was an exciting battle. PBKS choose to bowl first after winning the toss. Ruturaj Gaikwad and Ajinkya Rahane had a solid starting partnership for CSK. Rahane scored 29 runs off of 24 balls in a cool-headed performance before getting caught by a delivery from Harpreet Brar. As captain, Gaikwad led the team and provided the much-needed solidity by anchoring the innings with a superb 62 off 48 balls.
However, CSK struggled against PBKS’s bowling attack and lost wickets frequently. Although Sameer Rizvi (21 off 23) and Ravindra Jadeja (24 off 25) made significant contributions, CSK was unable to build on their starts. CSK was able to reach an unsatisfactory total of 162/7 in the allocated 20 overs thanks to the rapid 15 runs off 9 balls from Moeen Ali and the 14 runs off 11 balls from MS Dhoni.
Pursuing 163, PBKS got off to a strong start led by Jonny Bairstow and Prabhsimran Singh. Bairstow struck a scorching 46 runs off 30 balls, while Singh smashed a rapid 13 off 10 balls. The momentum was maintained by Rilee Rossouw, who scored an incredible 43 from 23 balls. But with 13 balls remaining, PBKS prevailed thanks to Shashank Singh’s undefeated 25 off 26 balls and Sam Curran’s explosive 26 off 20 balls.
PBKS eventually reached 163/3 in 17.5 overs, easily reaching the mark. CSK’s Richard Gleeson, Thakur, and Dube each claimed one wicket, but they were unable to prevent PBKS from winning by a commanding seven wickets. Player of the Match went to Harpreet Brar for his winning innings.
Check out these three adjustments CSK needs to make in order to resume winning
Ruturaj Gaikwad, the losing captain, said:
Probably 50-60 runs short, the pitch wasn’t great when we batted, it got better later on. With the impact rule as well, we were well short. I’ve practiced the tosses (during the practice sessions), it’s not going well in the match, not sure what to do. To be truthful, I’m under pressure when I go to the middle (for the toss). We were also surprised that we won by a big margin in the last match considering the conditions (win by 78 runs against SRH). I think the last two games, the conditions and pitch was better, it allowed us to fight hard and get to 200+, today, it wasn’t good enough to get to even 180. It’s a real problem (on the player missing due to injuries and Chahal walking away in the first over), there are phases where you want wickets, but you have only two bowlers, the dew took the spinners out of the equation. It was tough, but there’re four games left and we will try and come back to winning ways.
Sam Curran, the winning captain, said:
Very happy. Everytime you come to Chennai and take two wins, always a special feeling. Same as last year, we lost a lot of our home games and won away, finding a similar pattern. We are in a position where we need to win all our games, we come up against the same opposition in a few days. I think when you come to Chennai, you now how hot it is and dew is going to settle in. Today we wanted to try something different by trying Rabada in the powerplay. We wanted to use our spinners later on, so took a punt on trying KG within the powerplay. Chahar came back and was the best bowler in the 260 game, and he’s bowling with great confidence. He stepped up when I asked him to bowl against MSD in the 19th over. (On bowling Chahar in the 19th) The pace bowlers were going for a bit in the end, and I wanted to try something different. Asked Rilee what he reckoned and took that gamble with spin. In this game where everyone has been going for runs, you need to take such gambles. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. We come against the same opposition so we have one up on them. It is a new game, new conditions but this win will give us a lot of confidence. I think our bowlers were superb, the spinners and Jonny striking them well, even the way we paced that chase, it was brilliant. Need to built on that confidence.
Harpreet Brar, POTM, stated:
It was a good wicket to bowl on, and even Rahul bowled really well. I have been playing since 6 years, so my confidence has been pretty high. Now bowling to these legends of the game feels normal, I just bowl to my strengths. To be honest, I don’t think wickets, my aim is only to bowl lots of dot balls and dot balls create the wickets. When there is spin in the wicket, the bowlers confidence goes up and it is a bit helpful.
