Rishabh Pant won his first match as an IPL captain with absolute dominance. Delhi Capitals beat Chennai Super Kings in the second IPL match of this season in Mumbai by seven wickets with eight balls remaining.
Opening Pair Failure
Rishabh Pant elected to field first after winning the toss and his players justified the call. Just 2.1 overs into the game and Chennai Super Kings were without their openers. Faf du Plessis, Chennai’s best bat for IPL 2020 went for a duck, in 1.4 over, thanks to an inducker from Avesh Khan. In no time, Ruturaj Gaikwad became the second man to go for just five runs off eight balls as Shikhar Dhawan took a smart catch in space of next three balls. The middle-order however showed resistance and took the score to 188 but they fell short of few runs for the early breakthroughs.
IPL 2021: Here’s The Reason Why Anrich Nortje is not Playing Today Against Chennai Super Kings
Dropped Catches
Shikhar Dhawan and Prithvi Shaw were dropped by the Chennai team and they eventually went on to play match-winning innings for Delhi Capitals. Dhawan was dropped once and he ended up as the highest run-scorer of the day with 85 runs off just 54 balls with 10 fours and two sixes. On the other hand, Shaw was dropped twice and interestingly was the second highest run-scorer for the winning side with a 38-ball 72 runs. While the opening pair of Chennai Super Kings failed terrible, it was the DC openers who set the tone of the chase. They added 138 runs for the first wicket in just 13.3 overs and thankfully the middle-order continued the momentum.
Lack of Pace
Today the bowling line up of Chennai Super Kings lacked variety. The late withdrawal of Josh Hazlewood had a significant impact as the Australian could offer a very good quick-bowling option. With Lungi Ngidi in quarantine for this match, the CSK bowling looked similar with all four pacers, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur, Sam Curran, and Dwayne Bravo bowling at a very similar pace. In the next game, Chennai Super Kings would definitely plan to bring Ngidi in place of Bravo. Another option could be to include the experienced leg-spinner Imran Tahir to add variety.
All you need to know about Avesh Khan who dismissed Dhoni for a duck
Stay updated with all the cricketing action, follow Cricadium on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
