Chennai Super Kings registered a massive win against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Sunday, at Pune. Though the winning margin wasn’t that big, the way CSK secured the win against the orange army was indeed remarkable. For the first time in this IPL, fans saw the shades of vintage CSK under the captaincy of MS Dhoni, who got his captaincy after Ravindra Jadeja handed it to him. CSK batted first and put up a mammoth score of 202 for the loss of only 2 wickets on the scoreboard, and successfully defended their total by limiting SRH within 189, taking 6 of their batsmen.
The openers strike for CSK
The openers for CSK did the main job in leading CSK to victory. The score of 202 can easily be chased down in modern-day T20 cricket but the way they batted, signified that today they were there to win. Firstly, Ruturaj Gaikwad played a magnificent inning but got out in 99 of 57 balls with 6 fours and 6 sixes, with a strike rate of 173.68. Secondly, Devon Conway coming alongside him scored 85 of 55 balls with 8 fours and 4 sixes with a strike rate of 154.55. The partnership of these two greatly impacted the result of the match.
Breaking the opening partnership of SRH
As said, 202 isn’t impossible to chase in modern-day T20 cricket. SRH coming to bat in the second innings were playing with that motive, maintaining a current run rate above 10. Abhishek Sharma scored 39 of 24 balls with 5 fours and a six, and Kane Williamson scored 47 of 37 balls with 2 fours and 2 sixes, and these two were gradually getting their team to victory. However, Mukesh Choudhary and Dwaine Pretorius got Sharma and Williamson out respectively, thus breaking the partnership.
Stopping Nicholas Pooran
In the end, Nicholas Pooran gave a last try to save the match, and lead SRH to win, but the CSK bowlers didn’t permit him to do the same. Though the West-Indian hard-hitter played an impressive knock of 64 of just 33 balls with 3 fours and 6 sixes, with a strike rate of 193.94, in the end, it was CSK who had the last laugh.
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