The cracks on the Arun Jaitley Stadium pitch were key to Delhi Capitals’ decision to bat first against Chennai Super Kings on Tuesday. The decision backfired.
The Super Kings bowlers were right on target on the challenging surface, limiting the Capitals to a modest 155/7. Thereafter, Sanju Samson helped the Super Kings boss the chase, hitting an unbeaten 87 off 52 balls to lead the five-time champions to an emphatic eight-wicket win.
Such was the control of the CSK bowlers that skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad could wait till the 19th over before bringing in seamer Jamie Overton. The start to CSK’s reply, too, wasn’t ideal though as they lost Gaikwad to Lungi Ngidi, who returned (in place of Kyle Jamieson) following recovery from his neck injury, in the fourth over of the chase.
Batting didn’t appear to be getting easier on the surface as the Super Kings lost a set Urvil Patel in the next over after Powerplay with only 45 on the board. Sharp work behind the stumps off skipper Axar Patel’s bowling led to Urvil’s departure, keeping the hosts in the contest.
But then, Samson anchored the innings and was well complemented by Kartik Sharma (41 not out off 31 balls) in an unbroken 114-run stand, which helped CSK do the double over the Capitals this season.
Calculated innings
On the tricky Delhi wicket, Samson did the important thing of being patient against Mitchell Starc, who troubled him a bit in the first over of the chase, and Ngidi. The keeper-batter did play the odd stroke, but his strike rate was just above 100 even an over or two after Powerplay.
Barring lofting Axar over cover for the first of his six sixes, Samson hardly took any risk against the Capitals’ captain. Then came the 12th over where an extremely erratic Kuldeep Yadav went for 18 as Samson smashed him for a couple of sixes and a boundary. Kuldeep pitched it either too full or too short, and Samson cashed in on them.
Right through his stay, he made fine use of the crease, putting a price on his wicket. Pacer T. Natarajan, too, erred in length in the 15th over, and Man of the Match Samson with another set of two sixes and a four took the Super Kings closer to victory.
Quick wickets
Since losing Pathum Nissanka to Mukesh Choudhary off the last ball of the fourth over, the Capitals kept losing wickets to be reduced to 69/5 after 11 overs. The economical Akeal Hosein foxed KL Rahul soon after, before Noor Ahmad’s sustained pressure on Karun Nair and Nitish Rana led to their dismissals.
The Capitals’ innings was going nowhere when Gurjapneet Singh dismissed Axar. However, Tristan Stubbs, dropped on 1, found an ally in Impact Player Sameer Rizvi (40 not out off 24 balls) to resist with a 65-run stand.
Ashutosh Sharma and Rizvi smashed Anshul Kamboj for 20 in the final over of the innings to take the Capitals past 150, but it didn’t prove to be enough.