After a disappointing start to their IPL V campaign, defending champions Chennai Super Kings pulled up the all important first win of the tournament. They defeated Deccan Chargers comprehensively who started as clear underdogs sans their captain Kumar Sangakkara. On the other hand, Chennai one of the pre-tournament favorites and the reigning champions showed why they have tagged as so and displayed a clinical all round performance. Chargers were nowhere in the game and things might change for them once they Sangakkara joins their brigade, but speaking of yesterday’s performance, they have the ability to much more better than that and if they really have to lift their performance up then their domestic players would have to take onus upon them.

Here are some of hits and flops of the match that Chennai deservingly won:

Hits and flop of Chennai Super Kings

Hits

Ravindra Jadeja: After failing miserably in the first match against Mumbai Indians, Jadeja finally justified the point as to why his franchisees spent a fortune on him. The million dollar boy of IPL season V lived up to his Rockstar image and played an all round hand with both bat and ball. He first belted Deccan bowlers all over the park and scored 48 runs off 29 balls including three fours and three sixes. He got out in the most unfortunate of manner as he was hit wicket off Dale Steyn’s rising delivery. Had he stayed he would have created more problems for the Chargers.

It seemed like it was his day altogether and he was asked to do the job with the bowl he grabbed on to the opportunity and took five wickets by giving away just 16 runs in his four overs. The way he performed shows how seriously he is about the price tag on his head and if he keeps it up, he would pile up some great figures against his name this season.

Dwayne Bravo: He was simply hitting the ball as though he was playing at some local level tournament and his oppositions were some amateurs. He hit five sixes in his innings which lasted for 18 balls and yielded him 43 runs. Bravo played a very major hand in helping Chennai reach 193, the highest score of this edition.

Fap du Plessis: If Bravo was on a spree during the end, Plessis was at the beginning. He gave a start that every team desires and scored 39 from 25 balls including a four and four meaty sixes.

Flops:

There were some bad performances but were not enough to weigh down the team performance as such.

Hits and flop of Deccan Chargers:

Duo of Del Steyn and Daniel Christian: On a day when opposition batsmen were hitting the bowlers at will, these two prevailed and displayed some good performance under crunch situation. Steyn and Christian took two wickets apiece by giving away 25 and 26 runs respectively of their four overs. These two were the only positive that they can take in the next match.

Flops

Domestic players: An IPL team’s strength is determined by the fact that how strong their domestic bench strength is. This was a department where they failed miserably and none of them could justify their position in the team. Their domestic bowlers M Gony and T Sudhindra gave away runs at more than 11 runs per over in their four overs and when came to their batting they were just not up for the challenge. Foreign recruits definitely adds to the firepower of a team in this tournament but domestic players hold the key to success and Deccan would require Indian players to seriously take up the challenge if they want a good result by the end of the tournament.

By Samikshan Dutta Choudhury
Indian Sports News