Chennai Super Kings (CSK) who started the tournament on an inconsistent note seems to hit have the form at the right time and now have got two consecutive wins. After a thrilling win against Pune Warriors few days back, they beat Rajasthan Royals (RR) yesterday in a last ball finish at the M.A Chidambaram Stadium.

Rajasthan Royals batting first could manage to pile up only 146 runs and it looked like that CSK would have a cakewalk. And it did prove to be exactly the same from the onset of their chase and it was looking like a one sided affair till the 16th over. At 116-1, it looked like Chennai would run away with the match with few overs to spare, but two quick wickets in the 17th over changed the face of the game and it looked like anybody’s game. But as luck would have it, Chennai finally walked off with the win in the last ball of the match.

Chennai Super Kings:

Hits:

Francois du Plessis: He has showed immense consistency at the top of the batting order for Chennai Super Kings right throughout the tournament. He played a very important role in setting up a platform for yesterday’s win. He scored 73 of 52 deliveries including six fours and two sixes. It was his third half century of the IPL 5.

Duo of Dhoni and Dwayne Bravo: They came on to bat and a very tense situation. After being subdued throughout the match, RR got on top of the action after they picked up two quick wickets. They were looking to attack the new batsmen at the crease. But then the duo played well under the pressure and without taking any uncalculated risks guided the home team to their third victory of the tournament.

Bowlers: Their bowlers did pretty well and never let the opposition’s batsmen to break free at any point of the match. Barring Ravindra Jadeja and Dwayne Bravo who went for more than 10 runs per over everyone did well to keep the economy rate on the lower side.

Rajasthan Royals:

Hits

Owais Shah: He led the batting charge of the RR’s. On a day when runs were hard to come by he still managed to score at a strike rate of 120+. His innings of 52 of 43 deliveries was laced with four boundaries and three huge blows over the rope.

Kevon Cooper: His twin strike in the 17th over where he dismissed the well set Du Plessis and the dangerous Suresh Raina gave his team an outside chance to win the match. They eventually lost the match but he did well to hold on to his nerve on a low scoring match. He returned with figures of two for 23.

Flops:

Amit Singh: He gave away 45 runs in four overs which was one of the prime factors as to why RR lost the match including eight runs in the 19th overs which sealed the fate of RR’s.

By Samikshan Dutta Choudhary

Indian Sports News