It was the match between ‘The Son of the Soil’ (DK) Vs ‘The Adopted Son’ (MSD), and to guess who the winner could be was a no-brainer; given the stats that CSK at their fortress has a winning percentage of 93% (in the last 15 games).

Toss was always going to be crucial at Chepauk because of the pitch uncertainty, and Dhoni had an upper hand after winning the toss and inviting KKR to bat first. The Pitch was a slower one and had enough support for the spinners to exploit. Deepak Chahar has only been getting better with every match that he has played for CSK, and he proved his ability again by striking in the very first over to get rid of dangerous Chris Lynn. Sunil Nariene was dismissed in the very next over, but he can’t be blamed for it because that’s the way he plays. KKR kept on losing their wickets in quick succession as a result of which, it seemed that they may even fail to bat for 20 overs. As it has been the story of the season for KKR so far, they have been dependent on Russell and one must admit that even after nursing a wrist injury, playing out 44 balls for a 50, he did manage to ensure that KKR batted for 20 overs. But with 108 on the board, it was never an easy game for KKR to defend.

KKR Fall of Wickets:

6-1 (Chris Lynn, 0.6), 8-2 (Sunil Narine, 1.5), 9-3 (Nitish Rana, 2.3), 24-4 (Robin Uthappa, 4.4), 44-5 (Dinesh Karthik, 8.4), 47-6 (Shubman Gill, 10.1), 76-7 (Piyush Chawla, 15.3), 76-8 (Kuldeep Yadav, 15.4), 79-9 (Prasidh Krishna, 16.3)

CSK was off to good start with some fancy hitting by Shane Watson and Suresh Raina, which paved the way for the run chase. Faf du Plessis batted responsibly to see off the chase with his innings of 43 off 45 balls. Ambati Rayudu contributed with the bat as well before he got out to Piyush Chawla at a score of 21 off 31 balls. It took 17.2 overs for CSK to score the winning runs with 7 wickets in hands.

CSK Fall of Wickets:

18-1 (Shane Watson, 2.2), 35-2 (Suresh Raina, 4.6), 81-3 (Ambati Rayudu, 14.4)

KKR failed to read the pitch well as a result of which they couldn’t analyze it on time what could be the par score on that pitch. It was not a pitch of 170-180 runs, but 135-140 runs could have been a fighting total. All that KKR needed was partnerships to build and set the platform for Russell at the end to show his muscle power, but that didn’t happen. KKR lost their top 4 batsmen in the powerplay itself. Dhoni was able to get the best out of his bowlers yet again by executing the plans well. As admitted by Mahi as well in his post-match interview, that this is not the kind of wicket he would have wanted to play because, in situations like these, toss becomes important and almost the deciding factor. It was good to hear Dinesh Karthik backing his team’s performance at the post-match interview mentioning that it would not impact the morale of the team and they would bounce back in the next game at Eden Gardens.

It was A clinical performance from the men in yellow which helped them propel to the top of the table. Both the teams would play again at the Eden Gardens on April 14^th and KKR would want to take the revenge of yesterday’s game.

Man of the Match: Deepak Chahar ( 4 Overs, 20/3)