Riding on Tushar Deshpande, Mustafizur Rahman and Ravindra Jadeja’s brilliance followed by Ruturaj Gaikwad and Shivam Dube’s fine knocks helped Chennai Super Kings (CSK) registered a 7-wicket victory against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in their Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 match here at MA Chidambaram Stadium on Monday.
CSK continued domination at their fortress as they cruised home without really breaking a sweat, ending KKR’s unbeaten run in this tournament. Chennai skipper Gaikwad remained unbeaten at 67 as he slammed the winning runs for the team.
Gaikwad and Rachin Ravindra started the 138-run chase on a high note as the openers put a huge amount of pressure on the KKR bowlers.
Vaibhav Arora drew the first blood for KKR as he removed CSK opener Rachin Ravindra for 10 runs. New batter Daryl Mitchell was dropped by Ramandeep at the deep backward square leg in the 6th over.
Daryl Mitchell and Gaikwad continued the charge as they hammered KKR bowlers at regular intervals. CSK captain Gaikwad reached fifty in 45 balls.
In the 13th over, Sunil Narine broke the 70-run stand between Mitchell and Gaikwad. Narine dismissed Mitchell for 25. Shivam Dube came out to the crease and the batters slammed some outstanding shots, taking CSK close to victory before losing his wicket to Vaibhav Arora 28 off 18.
Dube’s wicket invited MS Dhoni to the crease and the stadium erupted in loud chants as the crowd-favourite wicketkeeper-batter came onto the crease. In the 18th over, Gaikwad slammed a boundary guiding his team home with a 7-wicket victory.
Earlier, Ravindra Jadeja’s outstanding spell of 3/18 restricted the KKR to 137/9 in 20 over. Gaikwad won the toss and elected to bowl first.
On the first ball of the inning, KKR lost their in-form opener Phil Salt. After Salt’s wicket, Sunil Narine and Angkrish Raghuvanshi guided the Knight Riders to the 50-run mark in the fifth over.
The Kolkata-based franchise lost both batters in the seventh over which was bowled by all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja. First, the spinner dismissed Raghuvanshi at 24 runs which was laced with three fours and a six and then dismissed Narine who scored 27 runs with the help of three boundaries and two maximums.
After two back-to-back wickets in Jadeja’s over, Shreyas Iyer and Venkatesh Iyer were on the crease. Both batters were able to put on just four runs before Venkatesh was sent back to the pavillion after scoring just three runs on the bowling of Jadeja in the ninth over when the team score was 64 runs.
After Venktesh’s wicket, Ramandeep Singh came out to support his skipper Shreyas. Both of them were able to add just 21 runs to the total before Ramandeep was sent back to the dressing room after scoring just 13 runs in his innings in the 12th over.
Rinku Singh along with Shreyas built a partnership of 27 runs before Rinku was dismissed after scoring just nine runs.
Andre Russell came to bat next in the middle. The right-hand batter along with Shreyas was able to build a partnership of 15 runs before he was dismissed after scoring 10 runs on the bowling of Tushar Deshpande in the 19th over when the team score was 127.
In the 20th over, Mustafizur Rahman bagged two wickets in his last over of the spell and finished the innings with the figures of 4-0-22-2. He took the wickets of Shreyas and Mitchell Starc.
Other than Mustafizur, three wickets each were snapped by Jadeja and Deshpande in their spells of four overs where they conceded 18 and 33 runs respectively.
Brief Score: Kolkata Knight Riders 137/9 in 20 overs (Shreyas Iyer 34, Sunil Narine 27) vs Chennai Super Kings 141/3 (Ruturaj Gaikwad 67, Shivam Dube 28; Vaibhav Arora 2-28).
