The 15th match of the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) has ended in a thrilling manner at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. After losing the toss, MS Dhoni-led CSK got off to a flying start with the young Ruturaj Gaikwad. He smashed 64 runs off 42 balls while Faf du Plessis steadied the ship alongside the youngster. They added 115 runs in 12.1 overs.
Later, Faf Du Plessis did what he could do the best and got good support from Moeen Ali and MS Dhoni as well. He scored 95 off 60 balls whereas Moeen scored 25 off 12. Meanwhile, MS Dhoni has finally hit a six on his way to 17 off 8 balls as well. CSK posted a huge total of 220/3 in their allotted 20 overs.
On the other hand, the chase was tough for KKR as they lost their top five scalps with a score of 31 runs that too within powerplay. And then, it was Andre Russell show as he took on the opposition. He smacked 54 runs off 22 balls before Sam Curran beautifully castled him down the leg-side. Alongside him, Dinesh Karthik (40) too did well in the middle.
After their onslaught, speedster Pat Cummins started taking on the opposition but it wasn’t enough as well. However, his heroic effort eventually came for a losing cause as he lost support from the other end. He smacked 30 runs in an over off Sam Curran. He scored 66 but KKR were all out for 202 runs. Chennai Super Kings (CSK) have won the match convincingly and with this, they have won three matches successively.
Man of the Match, Faf du Plessis said: “This was the most fluent I’ve felt so far. Felt the previous game things started to get better. Tonight was another step. It’s about the rhythm of the flow of the hands. Few games before this and even tonight spinners were the best bowlers.
Even Jadeja bowled well for us. The ball just grips a bit. We thought the seamers from the other side we can catch up. He’s a fantastic young talent. Those first couple of balls you can feel on edge as a batter.
Beautiful to see him trust the timing and the technique. For a small guy he hits the ball a long way. been very lucky playing under MS for a long time. He knows what he’s doing, pleasure to play under him. Was dew tonight and then it was a proper batter’s game.”
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CSK captain MS Dhoni said: “Quite easy in a game like this. From the 16th over onwards the contest was between the fast bowler and the batsman. You can’t do too much. Can’t put different field. It’s about you vs me. The side that has one is a side that has executed slightly better. But if they would’ve had more wickets, could’ve been different.
Have seen enough in cricket, always like to be humble. There’s no good reason if you have scored, the opposition can’t score. My lines to the players was that we have got good runs on the board but let’s be humble. You don’t want to take too many early wickets. Big hitters coming in, 200 runs, there’s only one way they’ll play. Not much you can do.
The only option was Jadeja. It was turning, was a bit dry. The batting has been really good. Rutu is somebody who has shown his class in the last IPL. You always need to assess where he is mentally. Once when he was off guard, I just asked him how are you feeling today.
When you put a question like that, you wait for the reactions, you see what’s in his eyes. There was enough in his reactions to suggest he wasn’t rattled. That’s what I’ve been doing all my life (applying psychology) but in a good way.”
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KKR captain Eoin Morgan said: “It’s (pulse) quite high at the moment. What a hell of a game of cricket. Certainly from the position we were in after our powerplay, we probably didn’t think we’d get as close as we did. But Andre Russell,
Dinesh Karthik really did put a partnership together, once you do that taking advantage of the conditions here, it’s very difficult to stop. A partnership going in that manner and then following that Pat Cummins the way he played really gave us every chance towards the end.
Tremendous fight from our middle and lower order which is all you can ask for when you lose wickets upfront like that. The first five overs of our batting didn’t go our way. We didn’t play as well as would have liked. If we had built a partnership and taken advantage of those early overs going into those middle overs, we would have been in a really strong position.
We can be happy with the way (we adapted to) new ground, different challenges. Going back to it now having watched our guys bat, I don’t think there was a great deal of margin of error. So we have to be a little bit kinder to our bowlers when we walk off.
Having been hit for 220 and then nearly getting close, being five down very early, you have to be honest with the bowlers about execution. It does make a huge amount of difference but you really have to be on the money here.
I tend to stay away from Andre after he’s got out. When he’s in the form like this, he’s as good a player as any in the tournament, particularly when he strikes the ball like that. It’s great that he’s been in this sort of form. It’s disappointing that the rest of us couldn’t help him out. He’ll obviously be disappointed.”
