IPL 2021 | CSK vs KKR: What Experts Said as Chennai win see-saw battle against Knight Riders

It wasn’t a beautiful finish for a game that deserved it, but the finish was nonetheless more entertaining than most matches. Chennai Super Kings vs Kolkata Knight Riders see-sawed throughout its duration and at no point seemed like finished, and even if it did, it was either the brilliance of one man or stupidity of many that made it go right down to the wire. 

In the end, Deepak Chahar hit a single off the last ball of the 20th over to win the match, even as CSK needed only four to complete a chase of 172. However, it wasn’t as easy as just getting four from the last over, rather, the yellow army needed 26 from the last two overs as they lost three wickets in five balls to complicate the matters. 

In the last five overs, CSK needed only 44 runs to win with seven wickets in hand, but a brilliant 15th over Venkatesh Iyer in which he gave only five runs, shifted the momentum towards KKR and thus they took the target to 26 from two before Ravindra Jadeja lashed on the wayward bowling of Prasidh Krishna and hit 22 off the penultimate over to put Suni Narine under tremendous pressure of defending 4 runs from the last six balls. 

Captains' Viewpoint

Speaking after the third victory in a row, CSK skipper MS Dhoni said that it was nice to get the win, even as he did not play really well. “It's a nice victory to have. At times you play good cricket and you lose. It is enjoyable when you don't do so well and still win. It was good cricket from both sides and a pleasure for the spectators.”

Talking about the bowling, which was good in patches, especially with Shardul Thakur, Dhoni said, “We bowled well in patches. It's not easy for the fast bowlers. We tried to give them short spells. 170 was a par score, I felt.”

Chennai had a brilliant start towards the chase with their openers putting up 74 for the first wicket and then with another 28 runs with the second wicket mean that the men in yellow were cruising to the total. However, KKR made a comeback which was good enough to scare the Whistlepodu fans that their team might just lose it as well. 

“The way we started, KKR deserve some applause for making a game out of it. We were also worried about how the wicket will be,” said the CSK skipper. 

Eoin Morgan, the KKR skipper wasn’t bummed with the loss too much, especially after two back to back wins that his team has gathered. He refused to find fault in his team and considered it just as not ‘their day’. 

“Both sides batted well. Both bowled really well. Can't fault anything from our side. The second half of the tournament has been a lot of positives for our side. We just have to give ourselves the best chance,” said the 34-year-old. 

There were certain decisions that turned out really well and one such was holding back Varun Chakravarthy to get him to face MS Dhoni. While there were others like not bowling Sunil Narine in the 19th over and bringing him in the 20th, that didn’t really click. 

Talking about them, Morgan said that holding back Varun was ‘All about matchups.’ and that ‘Your bowlers need to bowl well enough to execute that.’ While on Narine bowling the 20th instead of the 19th, he said,  “Sunil takes the responsibility.”

Andre Russell, one of the key players of KKR was seen limping away to the dugout after injuring himself fielding on the boundary line, talking about him, Morgan said, “I hope Dre [Russell] is ok.”

“When Jadeja plays like that, similar to Sam Curran for England, I don't think there's a lot to do,” Morgan finally conceded about the loss with a sly smile. 

Expert Opinion

While Captains had their opinion on the game, the cricket experts were busy nibbling away their fingers on their Twitter accounts, writing about this game. Chloe Amanda-Bailey, a cricket journalist from Australia was in awe of Jadeja after the ‘Sir’ snatched away a victory off the jaws of defeat. 

Ayaz Memon, a senior cricket journalist from India was hugely impressed by KKR spinner Sunil Narine who got two wickets in the last over and almost defended four runs to get the match to the Super Over. 

Harsha Bhogle, a senior cricket commentator and analyst was also in praise of the prince from Jamnagar. 

Gaurav Kalra, one of the senior sports journalists, mostly known for his witty comments was at it this time again, digging into Dinesh Karthik after he scored a quickfire 27 off just 11 balls, hammering the CSK bowlers. Kalra brought in the reference of Karthik commentating in England this summer. 

And in the end, cricketer turned commentator turned cricket pundit, Aakash Chopra was in full praise of Shardul Thakur, who bowled four overs and gave away just 20 runs to pick two crucial wickets of Andre Russell and Venkatesh Iyer.

With this win at Abu Dhabi, CSK have now reached the top of the table with the same number of points as the Delhi Capitals, but a better run rate. KKR on the other hand remained at number four with eight points from 10 games.