Chennai Super Kings won by 77 runs over Delhi Capitals in the 67th match of the ongoing IPL 2023 at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi on May 20. Chennai Super Kings won the toss and opted to bat. They managed a huge total of 223, courtesy of Ruturaj Gaikwad (79) and Devon Conway’s (87) 141-run opening partnership. While chasing, David Warner scored 86 but he didn’t get enough support from the other end and they could manage 146 runs in their allotted 20 overs as well.
Here is what the captains and the player of the match said after the game:
Ruturaj Gaikwad, Player of the Match said as quoted by Cricbuzz: It was a must win game, and my 50th game for this franchise. Feels good to make a contribution. I think the wicket was holding up, was difficult to hit pacers but with spinners we thought we had a chance with short straight boundaries. We set the platform and after 10-12 overs and then we thought with Shivam, Mahi bhai and Jaddu to come in, we could really attack. (On Devon Conway) He had 1-2 areas where he wanted to improve, and he’s improved a lot. Playing at home in Chennai can be tough, but he’s adjusted very well. He’s a guy who’s always open to conversation, I love having him around even off the field.
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MS Dhoni, Winning Captain said as quoted by Cricbuzz: There is no recipe for success, you try and pick the best players and give them the best slot to perform. And groom them in the areas where they are not strong, somebody has to sacrifice their slot for the team. Credit to the management as well, they always back us. But, the players are most important, without the players we can’t do anything. I think death bowling, confidence is very important. Tushar has developed because he is able to execute under pressure, he has the confidence now. And when you keep playing the same players, it helps. I think the bowlers have also taken the responsibility, Pathirana is quite a natural to bowling at the death but Deshpande has really developed there. I think we need to figure out and pick players who are team first – not bothered about individual performance and perform the best at knockout stages. It is difficult to judge from the outside, we tryand adjust to the players and environment as well. Even if they come 10%, we can adjust 50% to fit them better into the team.
Deepak Chahar said as quoted by Cricbuzz: It was an important match, got the result we wanted. We wanted to win with a big margin. I think it was a 160 wicket, getting 220 was a tremendous job as our openers did very well. We had a long partnership which set the base for us, 220 for more than enough for us. I find this pitch better, in Chennai you sweat a lot and that makes it difficult to bowl slower balls. I have been practicing that because if you don’t get a new ball you need to have something different to your skill set. I think Tushar has improved a lot, he’s getting the confidence in his stock ball. If you don’t believe in that, you switch to plan B and plan C too early. This same mistake I did earlier. Pathirana is very difficult to face, we have a great combination with him bowling at the death.
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David Warner, the Losing captain said as quoted by Cricbuzz: Credit to CSK, they outbatted us today. We did see that it was a good pitch, boundaries early in the over and we could have put more pressure on their bowlers. There were some positives, we didn’t go too badly with the ball, with the bat we didn’t get partnerships, lost wickets in clumps, we lost some games badly and that hurt, we’ll have to look at these things and come back strongly next season. We can’t keep blaming the wickets, we have been getting some of these this season. We have to adapt to the conditions however tough it might be. You have to back your game plan, hit boundaries and use your feet against spin. You can’t get bogged down against any bowlers, partnerships would have been handy. I want to be consistent at the top of the order, you need to have a good SR to give yourself a chance, but we kept losing too many wickets in the batting powerplay, these are some of the things we need to think about.
