Chennai Super Kings crashed to their second consecutive defeat when they lost their away match to Sunrisers Hyderabad on Friday.
A lot of credit for Sunrisers’ victory should go to their pacers and the way their captain Pat Cummins marshalled his resources.
At a venue where more than 500 runs were scored and records broken during Sunrisers’ match against Mumbai Indians, CSK huffed and puffed to reach 165/5. The home team began their chase in a whirlwind fashion as they made 78/1 in the Powerplay overs.
Shivam Dube, who 1 top-scored for CSK on Friday. PTI
A bulk of the credit should go to Abhishek Sharma, who made 37 off 12 balls, including four sixes and three boundaries. Sunrisers never looked back and cruised to a six-wicket victory with 11 ball remaining.
Aiden Markram held the innings together with 50 off 36 balls. In the absence of Mustafizur Rahman, who has returned to Bangladesh to sort out his visa issues for the upcoming T20 World Cup, and Matheesha Pathirana, who is nursing a niggle, CSK’s bowling lacked discipline and bite. Two quick wickets by Moeen Ali in the later stages couldn’t help their cause.
It was a very different surface to the one that was laid out in the earlier matches. The Sunrisers bowlers were meticulous with their planning and strategies. They took the pace off and didn’t give CSK much room to execute their strokes.
Only Shivam Dube put up a challenge among the CSK batters. The left-hander proved once again that he can be an useful addition to India’s World Cup squad with another innings of intent on Friday.
Dube is CSK’s highest scorer after four matches with 148 at a strike-rate of 160.86. His 45 off 24 balls included four sixes. He took on the spinners
and pacers in the middle overs to help them reach a respectable total.
The Chennai top order struggled on a wicket where the ball came a bit slow on to the bat and the bowlers adjusted their length intelligently to restrict the run-scoring. The pacers, Pat Cummins, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jaydev Unadkat bowled well mixing their slower deliveries to put a leash on the attacking shots.
A 65-run partnership between Dube and Ajinkya Rahane (35 off 30) gave the Chennai innings some impetus but there was very little momentum in the death overs which affected their run-rate.
Sunrisers' Bhuvneshwar Kumar (second from left) celebrates with teammates after dismissing Rachin Ravindra for his first wicket this season on Friday. PTI
But Dube was on song. He has worked extensively on his weakness against the short ball and was ready to pull anything and find the boundaries. Gone are the days when he would duck or sway away from the line of any short-pitched stuff. He can get into the right position quickly to initiate the pull. But a slower one from Cummins accounted for his dismissal in the 14th over.
CSK were well-placed at 48/1 at the end of Powerplay overs but the introduction of spin in the form of Shahbaz Ahmed did the trick.