The Chennai Super Kings got their campaign back on track winning their second game of the season on Sunday, 4 October, after three consecutive losses in the Indian Premier League 2020. Last year’s finalists chased down the 179-run target by 10 wickets and 14 balls remaining, with both Faf du Plessis and Shane Watson plummeting the Kings XI Punjab bowling to all parts of the ground.
Both teams came into the clash in horrible form and needed to get crucial momentum in the bottom of the table clash. While KXIP chose to shake things up making three changes to their playing XI, while CSK decided to keep their last match’s team intact. And CSK’s backing of their old horses was rewarded in emphatic fashion with the pair sharing the second-highest opening stand in the IPL history.
The KXIP bowlers barely threatened the batsmen in their worst performance in the IPL this season and as a result, now lurk at the bottom of the table searching for inspiration to get out of the mess they have created for themselves.
On that note here are the three reasons why the Chennai Super Kings won against KL Rahul’s Kings XI Punjab.
You cannot do much if two stalwarts of white-ball cricket put their foot down and decide that nothing can dominate them tonight. An innings from Shane Watson was long overdue, but very few would have thought that Watson would pull off an amazing 83 off 53 balls laced with 11 fours and 3 humongous sixes tonight.
Ably supported by Faf du Plessis, both the batsmen raced each other in their 181 run stand and it was quite evident throughout the innings that there has been a change of approach and intent.
Speaking after the game Watson said, I felt like something that been slightly off, technically. So it was nice for it to come off. Just a combination of technique and intent. Was able to get the weight through the ball a lot better. We do complement each other well. There are bowlers he [Faf] prefers to take on and he's a great guy and good batting with him. With so much experience and success the franchise have had, they believe in the players. We just knew we had to do a few things better. It came together. “
The Kings XI Punjab had everything under control till the 17th over in the first innings. Batting first in the game, Punjab were poised at 152/2 at the end of the 17th over with KL Rahul and Nicholas Pooran preparing for the final flourish after the exquisite show of timing and composure. Pooran especially batting at 33 off 16 deliveries was looking to take the game away from the opposition.
And then came Shardul Thakur in the 18th and in his first two deliveries removed both Pooran and Rahul.
His first ball, a juicy half volley on the leg stump was hit so high by Nicholas Pooran that it probably brought some cloud back with it in his return to the Dubai International Stadium. While that took quite some time to happen, Jadeja set himself up on the deep square-leg boundary to take an exceptional catch under the tough lighting conditions at Dubai. Right after Pooran departed, Shardul in his next delivery sent KL packing to get him caught behind the wicket.
His figures might not have been kind, but that halted the momentum and KXIP only scored 26 runs after that.
KXIP decided to shake things up after their consecutive losses against Rajasthan and Mumbai. While the Rajasthan loss can be attributed to Rahul Tewatia’s blinder of an innings, against Mumbai they lost comprehensively, and at the heart of it was James Neesham.
Making three changes to the team, KXIP got in Mandeep Singh, Harpreet Brar, and Chris Jordan in place of Karun Nair, K Gowtham, and Neesham.
Yet again, quite perplexingly they sat out Mujeeb Ur Rahman, one of the best T20 bowlers in the world. At the end of the game Jordan had miserable figures of 0/42 in three overs and nobody in KXIP bothered the CSK openers enough to take wickets.
Punjab have difficult clashes ahead of them in Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kolkata Knight Riders who are a much better batting unit than Chennai and they have to figure out a balance in their squad which allows them to get the best out of their team.
Chennai Super Kings after tonight’s victory will hope that the squad is pumped enough to stage a turnaround. They have done it before and, in theory, plainly in theory, there is no reason why they cannot keep building on this performance. Chennai have a relatively lighter week, with KKR on 7th and RCB on 10th of this month and that should give MS Dhoni enough time to get his side revitalised and build their momentum in this tournament.
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