Chennai Super Kings have started the 2020 IPL addition with a victory over their biggest rivals in Mumbai Indians. Playing practice matches had given teams the idea that chasing down target will be the wisest thing as dew does settle in the second half of the match. CSK look happy on winning the toss and MI a touch disappointed. MI started with a bang by racking up 40 odd tubes in first few overs as CSK bowlers took time to find the required lengths on the pitch. Dhoni introduced Chala in 5th over and he gave the breakthrough by dismissing Rohit and de cock fell to Sam Curran in next over.
Surya Kumar Yadav and Saurabh Tiwary kept finding the odd big shot here and there to keep scoreboard moving. By end of 13 over MI were 113/3 with Saurabh and Pandya looking extremely dangerous. From 14th over CSK find the ways of taking regular wickets and MI could not hit the required big shots which saw the batting team scoring 49/6 in last 7 overs of their batting. CSK catching was very safe as was evident by the catching if their boundary riders with Du Plessis taking two excellent catches. Lungi Ngidi who went for 29 in first two overs came back strongly to take 3 wickets in slog overs. MI managed to out 161/9 in overs, a good 15-20 runs short of where they should have been.
The new ball was going to swing under lights for some time and Boult and Pattinson were spotted on with their lengths to reduce CSK to 6/2 in first 2 overs. Du Plessis and Rayudu started to consolidate by batting sedate for next 3-4 overs. Bumrah bowled a no-ball on the last ball of 6th over and Rayudu dispatched the free hit to a 6 over wide long-on and that shortchanged the momentum of the match. With few starting to settle in both batsman started to be more aggressive and managed to find the required boundary in the over so that CSK were always keeping required run rate in check.
Rayudu was playing the aggressor and Du Plessis was anchoring the innings in the best possible way a T20 innings can be. Rayudu departed in 16 over for an excellent 71 of 48 balls. Dhoni sent Jadeja ahead of him as Krunal Pandya’s one over was remaining but Jadeja departed soon and in came Sam Curran who hit a 6 and a 4 of Krunal’s final over to tilt the scales heavily in CSK favour. He again hit a boundary of next over to virtually seal the match. Although Curran fell next ball Du Plessis hit two boundaries on first two balls of last over to close out the match and seal a clinical victory for CSK.
There were many moments when CSK fell behind but they had the grit to come back and register an emphatic victory. Winning the first match is always important and winning in the fashion CSK did it shows that they have already put a small step towards playoffs.
MI on other hand are slow starters so it was not surprising to see them lost the match but the way they went about raises certain questions which they would like to answer quickly to start their journey towards playoffs.
