Chennai Super Kings picked up a comfortable victory over Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the inaugural match of the IPL 2024. Batting first, Faf du Plessis gave a perfect start to the visitors but soon after his dismissal, wickets fell like a house of cards. From 41/0, RCB went to 42/3, which arguably sealed the fate of the match. However, the duo of Anuj Rawat and Dinesh Karthik kept RCB in the hunt as their partnership of 95 runs helped the side post 173 runs on the board in the first innings.
Meanwhile, Mustafizur Rahman stole the show with the ball in the first innings. He picked up four wickets, which derailed RCB’s momentum after a good start. When it came to the chase, Rachin Ravindra played an aggressive brand of cricket, which gave CSK the right momentum. The New Zealand international made 37 runs off 15 deliveries and later Shivam Dube made 34* runs off 28 balls to help CSK win the match by six wickets.
1. Fizz freezes RCB
Just when RCB were looking to be in total control of the match, Mustafizur came in and destroyed their momentum. He picked up the wickets of Faf du Plessis, Rajat Patidar, Virat Kohli and Cameron Green to demolish RCB’s batting unit, which helped CSK restrict RCB to a lower total. Coming to the IPL, there were reports of him missing the first game due to an injury, but the Bangladesh international stepped up and delivered well to help his team win.
2. RCB’s finishers finishing well
Over the years, RCB have always had issues with finishing games. They always had a heavy top order which dominated but when it came to finishers, they struggled. However, Karthik and Rawat’s partnership would give them a lot of confidence for the remainder of the season. Notably, Rawat made 48 runs off 25 deliveries while Karthik hit 38* runs off 26 balls.
3. Everyone chips in for CSK
CSK had a great start to the chase, courtesy of Ravindra’s brilliance. However, soon after he got out, there were reasons to worry about but the likes of Ajinkya Rahane (27), and Daryl Mitchell (22) kept up with the momentum before Dube and Ravindra Jadeja finished things off. Overall, they would be very happy with the effort of all the batters.
Here's what losing skipper Faf du Plessis said:
Always when you play, you get a bit of dip after the six overs. Chennai are a very good team in the middle overs, they squeeze you with their spinners. Maybe we were about 15-20 runs short, the pitch wasn’t as bad as we played in the first 10 overs. They were always ahead in the chase, we tried to squeeze and get a couple of wickets, but in the end we didn’t have enough runs. On this pitch, it is always better to bat first. Last year, the record was very skewed towards teams that batted first. The ball started to grip a bit with our spinners. Really good for Dinesh to set up his season, especially for someone who hasn’t played a lot of cricket. Anuj has shown some great promise for us, he showed great composure for a young guy and great power through the backend.
Here's what winning skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad said:
Total control I would say, right from the start (apart) from 2-3 overs. Would’ve loved 10-15 runs less but I think they played really well towards the end. I feel that was a big turning point to get Maxwell and Faf out. We got three quick wickets and it helped us control the next overs, that was the real turning point. I’ve always enjoyed it (captaincy), never felt it as an additional pressure. I had experience on how to handle it, never felt any pressure, obviously had Mahi (MS Dhoni) bhai as well. I think everyone in our squad are natural strokeplayers, I think even Jinks (Ajinkya Rahane) is playing really positively. Everyone knows their roles and which bowlers to take on. Role clarity really helps. Two-three things to work on, everyone batted well but I think if someone from the top 3 batted till the 15th over it would’ve been even easier.
from Cricket News: Today's Top news and headlines from cricket world | CricTracker.com https://ift.tt/I4z5jq0