On Thursday night, in-form Chennai Super Kings (CSK) suffered a 6-wicket defeat (with 14 balls to spare) against the hosts Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at Eden Gardens (Kolkata).

KKR captain Dinesh Karthik decided to field first after winning the toss. Apart from MS Dhoni’s unbeaten 43 runs knock, other CSK batsmen failed to capitalise their starts as CSK managed to score 177/5 at the end of 20 overs.

In reply, KKR was losing their wickets in regular intervals before Shubman Gill and Dinesh Karthik provided the unbroken match-winning partnership to secure the victory. The hosts successfully chased the target in 17.4 overs after losing 4 wickets.

Now, we will briefly talk about some important reasons for CSK’s defeat in this game.

Also read: Match 33 (KKR vs CSK) – Hits and Flops

Batsmen failed to convert their start into the big knocks

While all the top-order CSK batsmen reached the 20-run mark, they failed to convert those into the big scores. Openers Shane Watson and Faf du Plessis scored 36 and 27 runs respectively while next two batsmen Suresh Raina and Ambati Rayudu managed to score 31 and 21 runs respectively.

Only MS Dhoni played a good knock of unbeaten 43 runs off just 25 balls while Ravindra Jadeja scored 12 runs off 12 balls.

As the batsmen failed to play the big knocks, CSK only managed to put a fighting total of 177/5 at the end of 20 overs.

Good performance by KKR spinners

KKR spinners bowled superbly as the hosts succeeded to restrict the strong and in-form batting line-ups for 177 runs. While their pacers were mostly expensive, KKR spinners not only took the all five wickets in that innings also they slowed down the innings too.

Even in the death overs, they managed to bowl in the good line and lengths which proved not too costly for them.

Ravindra Jadeja’s poor all-round shows

The experienced CSK all-rounder had a very bad day on the field as he performed poorly in all three departments. After scoring only 12 runs off 12 balls with the 100 strike-rates in the death overs, Jadeja had the weak bowling figure of 4-0-39-1. But the most affecting was his two back-to-back catches drops in the early stage.

During the last two balls of the second over of KKR’s innings, Jadeja dropped twice Sunil Narine at the same mid-off position. Those were great chances for CSK to make an early pressure on the hosts.

While Narine was just on 6 runs during those missed opportunities, he scored 32 runs off just 20 balls before Jadeja dismissed him finally. That knock became very important for KKR to win the game comfortably.

Also read: (KKR vs CSK) – Turning Point of the Match 

Lack of control bowling

CSK bowlers were not in their good rhythm as they were not in control with the ball in hand. Apart from the experienced off-spinner Harbhajan Singh (economy rate 6.66), every other bowler had the economy rate over 9.

Moreover, CSK bowlers conceded total 11 wides which were huge to defend a fighting total. CSK bowlers failed to stop the run-flow in the KKR innings.

Karthik-Gill unbroken fifth-wicket partnership

While the other earlier KKR batsmen failed to provide a good partnership as they were once 97/4 in 11.4 overs, set batsman Shubman Gill and skipper Dinesh Karthik put the match-winning unbroken 83 runs partnership for the fifth wicket and secured the important 2 points for the team.

Both batsmen looked very positive and attacking too while they were not feeling any kind uncomfortable against the CSK bowlers.