35,000 spectators celebrated Chennai Super Kings and MS Dhoni’s spectacular return in style as the entertaining game came to a finish.
Despite scoring a season-high 217 goals, the Super Kings were outclassed on the powerplay. By breaking the IPL record set at Chepauk, Lucknow Super Giants put themselves in a great position at 80 for 1.
Dhoni spins a web
On a surface where dew, which KL Rahul thought would play a part in the chase, rarely had an impact, Dhoni returned to his usual “spin it to win it” credo once Moeen Ali had given them the early breakthrough.
Moeen and Mitch Santner, a dynamic spin team for the Super Kings, magically turned the game around with 5 for 46 off eight overs. KL Rahul, Kyle Mayers, and Marcus Stoinis were among Moeen’s victims as he finished with 4 for 26 despite not being required to bowl in their tournament opener.
The Moeen impact disguised the seamers’ nightmare start, especially for Impact Players Tushar Deshpande and Deepak Chahar, who between them let up 55 runs in four wicketless overs inside the opening 10 overs.
Nevertheless, Deshpande saved himself by knocking out Nicholas Pooran, who had been threatening to stage a coup as the Super Giants needed 62 off of 25. That was the match, which Super Kings eventually closed off to win by 12 runs and earn two points.
However, their fast bowlers leaked a lot of runs. Deepak Chahar went over 50 runs while Tushar Deshpande gave away 45 runs. Both the bowlers bowled a lot of wides and no balls in the match. This made the skipper unhappy and he didn’t mince any words.
MS Dhoni said, ” Fast bowling we need to slightly improve. Need to bowl according to the conditions. WHat is important is to keep an eye as to what the opposition bowlers are doing. One more thing is they’ll have to bowl no no-balls or extra wides. Or they’ll have to play under a new captain. It will be my second warning and then I’ll be off. Only reason we’ve scored those runs is if the surface is nice.”
Stay updated with all the cricketing action, follow Cricadium on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram