This match had the same script as the previous few games. The side that won the toss fielded first, considering dew. A good total is posted on the board and the chasing side falters from the start, never to comeback in the game and losing it by quite a margin. MS Dhoni’s side already lost Raina at the start of the tournament, for the reasons unknown yet, and then the injury of Rayudu has compounded their batting misery. Faf du Plessis appears to be the lone warrior with bat at the moment.
Chennai Chase
Chasing a target of 175, CSK’s top order failed again, thrice in three matches. Watson(14) had just begun to show some glimpse of his old self that he played a pull of Axar’s short ball straight to Hetmyer at midwicket boundary. Vijay(10 off 15) also got caught by Rabada off Nortje as his shot lacked power and timing to clear long on. CSK were 33/2 at the end of powerplay. Nortje and Rabada bowled good areas beating batsmen more often than not with their pace and swing. Axar also as economical as ever bowling tight lengths on stumps line. Even after powerplay Delhi bowlers continued to dominate. Seasoned campaigner Amit Mishra showed the right pace for spinners to bowl as he conceded only 23 runs in four overs, however didn’t get any wicket.
A 54-run partnership between Faf and Jadhav gave some hope for a contest but it was too few and too late to make any difference. Nortje got Jadhav plumb in front of stumps while Faf was caught behind of Rabada. This ended CSK’s resitance as with asking rate around 20, Dhoni and Jadeja were not able to score big shots from the word go. Consequently CSK were left 44 runs behind- a big margin for a T20 game.
Delhi post 176 as target
DC got a very good start from the openers as they piled on 94 for the first wicket. Shaw, after getting an early reprieve off caught behind when nobody appealed, looked in good touch. A flurry of drives, especially through cover region was most productive for him. He played equally well both against pacers as well as spinners. He got his fifty off 35 balls with 8 boundaries. Dhawan took some time to find his touch but with the introduction of spinners, he too played some attacking shots- using sweeps to good effect. Chawla, after being expensive early came back well to break the opening partnership as he scalped both Dhawan and Shaw. Dhawan(35) could not connect to the reverse sweep while Shaw(64) was stumped as he came down the track to Chawla, but the ball went past him through inside edge.
The twin strikes affected the scoring rate initially but Pant’s cameo helped Delhi to finish on a high. With 5 boundaries he scored 30 off 18 balls. Shreyas played a second fiddle to him with his 26(22) in the 58 run partnership. Ravindra Jadeja was most expensive conceding 44 in his 4 overs while Chahar went for 38 in a rare wicketless outing. The target 176 proved to be too much for CSK as they could only manage 131/7.
Prithvi Shaw, for his innings of 64 off 43 consisting of 9 fours and a six, was adjudged Man of the Match.