The 39th match of the IPL and its the southern derby.
Royal challengers Bengaluru vs Chennai Super Kings at the Chinnaswamy.
Below are the 5 talking points of the game.
1) Chennai Super Kings won the toss and decided to field first. Fielding first is the definite choice of the captain who wins the toss at the Chinnaswamy.
Put into bat RCB did not get to a great start and thanks to some great captainship from the veteran MS Dhoni. King Kohli just coming back from a 100 against the KKR was in prime touch but until set him up.
Dhoni threw the ball to Deepak Chahar asked him to ball outswingers on the 5th stump. Dhoni kept the 3rd man in the circle, had a man in the gully and a sweeper cover. Chahar did exactly what Dhoni asked him to do. He kept bowling him on the 5the stump channel and Kohli couldn’t resist in swinging the bat and edged it to Dhoni.
2) After losing Kohli in the 3rd Over, Ab de Villiers walked into bat. AB tried his best to rotate the strike and kickstart the innings but he never got going. He got out cheaply and a smart catch by fellow protea’s current skipper Faf Du Plessis. Parthiv Patel, on the other hand, kept striking the ball and rotated the strike. He was the main man in the batting department for RCB. He played some exquisite strokes and got to his 50 with a standing ovation from the crowd but he couldn’t continue to score bug runs and RCB eventually managed to score 161 runs off their 20 overs.
3) Chennai Super Kings came out to bat only to face the heat from Steyn Gun. Dale Steyn, coming back to the Chinnaswamy stadium after almost 10 years in the red jersey, came to haunt CSK in the first over of their Innings. He managed to pick up 2 important wickets of the CSK in the first over of the chase. He picked up Shane Watson with the trademark outswing bowling and picked up Suresh Raina with a toe breaker. This set up the game quite nicely. RCB bowling has never been in this deadly before, but addition of Steyn in the squad has ignited the fire in the bellies of RCB fas bowlers. Umesh Yadav, who has been expensive throughout the IPL but he was inspired by Dale Steyn’s impressive spell of bowling and Umesh Yadav picked up Kedar Jadhav and Faf Du Plessis. Score now was 28 for 4 wickets.
4) After losing 4 quick wickets CSK were in the back seat. In walks MS Dhoni. MS Dhoni has been in fine form but his back spasms had kept him out in the last game. Dhoni has been the bloodstream for CSK and without him, in the last game they were running out of options and they lost the game. MS Dhoni kept the scoreboard ticking and he kept running out of partners but till MSD is there in the crease you never know when? what ? and how things will happen. With 48 needed off the last 3 overs, Dhoni kept his head down and kept rotating the strike till 18th over. He was joined by DJ Bravo, who was also coming back from a long injury. Dhoni tried muscling the ball to all corners of the ground but just couldn’t connect them. He was backing himself up to finish the game as he was settled on the crease and was reading the wicket well. Needing 26 off the last over, Umesh Yadav was up against might MSD.
I)The first ball bowls a short delivery and Dhoni pulled him to the square leg for a boundary.
II) The second ball, Umesh Yadav balls him a good length delivery and Dhoni dispatches it to the street of MG Road in Bengaluru. It was a gigantic 111mtr six. 16 needed off 4 balls.
III)The third ball tries to york Dhoni but misses his length and Dhoni digs it out too long off for a six. Again. 10 needed off 3 now.
IV) The fourth ball. Umesh bowls a good yorker this time bt Dhoni is good enough to pick up 2 runs on that. 8 needed off 2.
V) The fifth ball. Umesh tries to ball a yorker again but misses it again but Dhoni is not missing on the freebies there. He tonks the ball over midwicket for a six. 2 needed off 1. Umesh Yadav doesn’t have any idea what he can do to contain MSD. He has bowled a short delivery, full toss, yorker but Dhoni hasn’t spared a single delivery. What is Umesh Yadav having now in his armory?
VI) The Sixth ball, Umesh Bowls a slower one and Dhoni tries to nudge the ball but misses it and Parthiv Patel hits the stumps from behind and Shardul Thakur is short of the crease and RCB win the game by just 1 run.
5)One major talking point in the game was when Dhoni did not take singles in the 19th over. We understand that Dhoni was settled, he can take his chances at any point of the game but this is very unlike Dhoni. DJ Bravo has been one of the best all-rounders even he could get Dhoni back on strike but Dhoni goes against it. Dhoni kept Bravo on the strikers’ end and they just managed to get 10 runs off the 19th Over and eventually they lost the game by 1 run.
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