CSK vs RCB, On Tuesday night, Chennai Super Kings faced off against Royal Challengers Bangalore, with both sides contesting their fifth match of the IPL at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai.
The yellow team, led by Ravindra Jadeja this year, finally gave a cause to its fans to whistle as they won by a margin of only 23 runs, thus kicking off the campaign with their first win.
In a thriller chase, Faf and his men put up a brilliant effort by mustering 193 but fell short of the enormous target.
The Dube and Uthappa Show
After being put to bat first, CSK amassed a total of 216/4, with Robin Uthappa and Shivam Dube scoring almost a quarter of the runs for the team.
The two, who have played for RCB in the past, stitched a partnership of 165 runs from just 73 balls for the 3rd wicket, which is now the highest in the history of the tournament of CSK vs RCB.
The veteran Uthappa started his innings slow, having scored only 27 off 25 balls, but the experience and patience came to light as he finished with 89 off just 50 deliveries.
He was supported on the other end by Dube, a youngster who could hit the ball long and hard. The left-handed batsman took the baton after Uthappa’s dismissal and fought till the very end for a well-deserved 95*.
In a dramatic finish, Dube faced the last ball on 94*, with a final chance to score a six and reach the milestone mark.
However, he could only hit the juicy full toss bowled by Josh Hazlewood straight into the hands of Faf du Plessis, whose safe hands dropped the ball in a rare occurrence.
The contrast in the first and second 10 overs was remarkably visible as CSK scored around 150 runs in the latter half.
Long Way to 200 – CSK vs RCB
CSK vs RCB, In the second innings, Bangalore suffered an early loss as skipper Faf returned to the pavilion after being caught in the third over only.
Virat Kohli was the next prized dismissal as he tried to pull a delivery off Mukesh Choudhary and got caught in the deep.
The situation looked bleak for Bangalore when Maxwell came in and scored a short but blistering knock of 26 runs.
Despite runs on the scoreboard, wickets continued to fall as Maheesh Theekshana, the young debutant, picked up wickets and eventually ended up with a 4-for in his very first outing.
Another debutant named Suyash Prabhudessai marked his presence as well by striking against experienced international bowlers.
Together with Shahbaz Ahmed, RCB steadily gained momentum as the two batsmen built up a 50 runs partnership for the 5th wicket.
When it seemed that RCB was steadily gaining on the target, Jadeja decisively brought back Theekshana into the attack.
The mystery spinner did not disappoint as he dismissed the two well-settled batsmen in quick succession.
With only 5 overs left, RCB’s hopes were now on the shoulders of Dinesh Karthik, who has faced such situations many times in the past.
The team management had relied on his ability to finish in the death overs and over the 36 years, old batsman from Tamil Nadu proved his value once again as he struck boundaries and gave a glimmer of hope.
It seemed as if fortune was in favor of him as well after he was dropped by Mukesh. However, the luck did not last very long and he was dismissed after hitting the ball straight to Bravo.
Stephen Fleming probably breathed a sigh of relief as the defending champion secured its first victory of the season after four losses in a row and has now moved up to second last in the points table, with only Mumbai Indians below it and in a very similar situation.
Despite suffering a defeat, RCB still sits comfortably at #5 in the table with three wins out of 5 matches.
While the batting order has proved its mettle, CSK will look to improve their bowling as well as fielding in the further matches, a liability that may cost them another year such as that of 2020.
For the nostalgic fan, the match may have been a mirrored moment of the 2012 match on the same date, when CSK clashed against RCB and Albie Morkel took the yellow team to victory by hitting 28 runs off the over of a young medium fast-paced Virat Kohli.
Edited by – Vanshika Sahu
Published by – Mohd Faizan
