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Clinical CSK reclaim top spot, put RCB in a spot of bother with 6-wicket win
M.S. Dhoni's Chennai Super Kings beat Virat Kohli's Royal Challengers Bangalore by six wickets in IPL 2021. CSK, bolstered by 38 from opener Ruturaj Gaikwad, overcame Bangalore's 156 for six with 11 balls to spare as Dhoni won the latest battle with his successor as India's captain.
Walking across and picking Glenn Maxwell from outside off stump to beat wide long-on for a boundary, Ambati Rayudu assured Chennai Super Kings (CSK) weren’t to be derailed easily. Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) had just pulled the chain, seeing off well-set openers Ruturaj Gaikwad and Faf du Plessis in successive overs. Virat Kohli was justifiably pumped up, scooping Gaikwad’s dying catch inches from the turf, haring in from backward point. And when Maxwell vindicated Kohli’s punt by inducing a top-edge off du Plessis’s bat, RCB were daring to dream again.
Rayudu quickly doused that fire though, first with that boundary before showing Maxwell his place with a massive six over long-on. Moeen Ali too started batting in sync, hitting Yuzvendra Chahal inside out for a six over long-off before turning on Wanindu Hasaranga, going down on his knee and swatting him for a six over deep midwicket. By the time Kohli caught Ali’s skier at midwicket, CSK had added 47 in 29 balls without breaking much sweat. Out came Suresh Raina, the most experienced IPL player, and he quickly crunched Chahal through covers for a boundary to make the equation an easy 32 runs of 30 balls. Rayudu made it even more skewed in CSK's favour, scoring two boundaries off Harshal Patel before pulling him straight to AB de Villiers at midwicket.
Enter MS Dhoni, 14 years to the day he had lifted the T20 World Cup as India captain. He, of all batters, knows how to play it out. No risk was necessary in such chases, not after the openers had set it beautifully with 59 in the first Powerplay, CSK’s best this season. Raina was unforgiving though, laying into Hasaranga for a massive six over deep backward square leg for six after Devdutt Padikkal couldn’t stop a four. Dhoni chimed in too, milking Mohammed Siraj for two boundaries in the 18th over to bring CSK two runs short of victory.
The margins of error in a T20 match is really small. And at Sharjah, with its extremely short boundaries, they can be ridiculously tight. Before Friday, 220 sixes were hit at Sharjah at an average of almost 18 per IPL match. The matchups were promising as well --- Dhoni had hit 46 sixes against RCB, the most against an IPL team; Kohli too had hit the most sixes against CSK, albeit 11 less than Dhoni. Leadership at this ground, therefore, isn’t as much about hitting sixes as it’s about preventing them. Unexpectedly, this battle of wits was won by Dhoni. In a match essentially of quarters, CSK conceded some ground in the first, only to weigh in with their mature bowling to restrict Royal Challengers Bangalore to a sub-par score before overhauling it with six wickets to spare.
RCB were off to a dream start though, averaging nine per over at the halfway mark, bringing up 100 in the 12th over and the opening stand of Padikkal and Kohli finally producing 111 runs. Kohli looked determined to bat as long as possible and make every ball count. Opening with two majestic boundaries against Deepak Chahar, Kohli showed he meant business from ball one. His third boundary though, using his bottom hand to get under Chahar’s knuckleball to muscle it over midwicket, showed Kohli was in his element. Not until Dwayne Bravo had started applying brakes on the match with his slower deliveries did Kohli come unhinged. Ravindra Jadeja further unsettled him with grip and sharp spin before Bravo got him caught at deep midwicket---the first time he had dismissed Kohli in IPL. The signs of slowing however were quite clear. After the first Powerplay, Kohli had scored just 20 off 20 balls, attacking just six of those deliveries.
Without Kohli, RCB again slowed down to a halt. AB de Villiers couldn’t connect as well as expected. Padikkal too was dismissed trying a ramp shot. Both getting out on successive Shardul Thakur deliveries was the last thing RCB would have wanted when Dhoni’s bowlers had started plugging the run flow. The last 10 overs yielded just 66 runs, including only six off the last two. After being spanked for 31 off three overs, Chahar gave away only four in the 19th over. But Bravo bettered him, taking two wickets and conceding just two in the 20th over. He ended with an economy of six, Thakur 7.25 and Jadeja 7.75. When three out of five bowlers are that economical, winning in Sharjah becomes easier. So unless both teams qualify for qualifiers, the world will remember Dhoni having the last laugh the final time he and Kohli met as IPL captains.
