IPL 2021 | CSK vs SRH: Hits and Flops as accomplishing Super Kings punish Sunrisers into disarray

Amid the unprecedented times and the unbearable havoc that the Covid-19 has wreaked upon India, the only thing normal is the Chennai Super Kings coming back to winning ways in the IPL.

Having won four of their first five matches this season, The Super Kings were quite a confident group coming into the contest against the Sunrisers Hyderabad, and it was telling in their approach while batting.

On the other hand, the Sunrisers were lacklustre once again with the bat and could post only 171 runs although the pair of Manish Pandey and David Warner scored individual fifties.

Here, we’ll decipher the best and the worst performances of the night.

Hits

Ruturaj Gaikwad

Ruturaj Gaikwad has started turning the trust, investments and all the hype surrounding him before he made his debut last year, into performances, a substantial one at that.

He had looked like a fish out of water when he was inducted into the middle order but with the continuous struggles of Shane Watson, the door just opened for him by the halfway stage last year.

The campaign ended as a nightmare for the Super Kings, but they were elated at finding a polished talent in Ruturaj Gaikwad and as always the Stephen Fleming-MS Dhoni was not lost in their vision to see the enormous value he could bring to the table.

He had started turning a corner by the last few matches of IPL 2020 but the start of the ongoing edition was a pleasant one for him and the CSK. However, the CSK team management is not short of patience in backing their players whom they believe can contribute, and Gaikwad is reaping full returns out of the opportunities.

Against the Sunrisers, he started off awkwardly against the control and precise length of Sandeep Sharma. Siddarth Kaul too induced an outside edge off his bat but he survived that chance too. Two moments of awkwardness was enough for the right-hander and then the long night began for the Sunrisers in New Delhi.

The powerplay yielded 50 runs but a majority of runs flowed off Faf du Plessis' bat and Gaikwad was at a run a ball 17. He had to amend his course or else the Super Kings would have had to struggle in the middle phase.

He was awake to the task and milked Jagadeesha Suchith superbly, first from the front foot and then waited for him to pounce from the back foot. On the very first ball he faced from the left-arm spinner, he was down to the pitch of the ball to whip it over midwicket for four and played with the mind of the spinner who was afraid of him getting to the pitch of the ball again. An attempted length ball was not executed well and Gaikwad pulled it over midwicket to stamp his authority on the spinner with wide-ranging shots in his repertoire.

Although he dominated Suchith, his best was yet to come and it came against none other than the trump card in the Sunrisers camp—Rashid Khan. Warner called upon Rashid to stop the impressive partnership from becoming carnage and he started well to stop the momentum. 

However, he too was to face the ire of Gaikwad and his mastery of bowling in-between lengths was well capitalised upon by the right-hander. After conceding only four runs in his first over, Gaikwad took him off for a boundary in his next but the champion spinner fought back to keep it to just 11 runs from his first two overs.

The carnage was well and truly on against Suchith though from the other end and three back to back boundaries off him established that the Sunrisers were out of the game by the end of the 12th over.

Whatever hopes they would have had was shattered in the next over when Gaikwad handed Rashid Khan a similar treatment he offered Suchith—a hattrick of boundaries. 

To be fair to Rashid, he got one to edge Gaikwad but only for Bairstow to spill the chance behind. But, Gaikwad did not let him settle and punished him for bowling short deliveries one after another to make it a flurry of boundaries.

Rashid came back again and hit his stumps beating him all ends up with a ripping leg break. But Rashid too would concede, Gaikwad won that bout of battle as he snatched away the game from the Sunrisers even in his four-over quota of bowling.

Faf du Plessis

Faf du Plessis has seen various phases of the Chennai Super Kings. He has been a veteran in yellow who first saw the opening pair of Murali Vijay and Michael Hussey dominating the bowling attack followed by the pair of Brendon McCullum and Dwayne Smith.

Then, he came to the forefront of the batting order with Shane Watson and also saw the worst season for the Super Kings last year where he and his opening partner struggled miserably to get going.

Having seen what has worked for the Super Kings in their heydays and not working with a diminishing MS Dhoni last year, du Plessis has batted with absolute freedom at the top after finding his form just at the right time.

On the night against the Sunrisers, it was him who took the onus on himself to get the Super Kings going while Gaikwad took some time to get going. He started his onslaught with a signature down the track and drive through extra cover against Khaleel Ahmed. 

When the left armer returned with his second over, du Plessis was more ready and played a splendid drive through the cover using just his hands that Ian Bishop rated as ‘a thing of beauty' from the commentary box.

He scored his third fifty of this season from 32 balls and set up the chase for the Super Kings.

There were words surrounding his place in the team after an average season last year but Dhoni and Fleming stuck with him and the results are flowing off his bat in the forms of crips drives and rocketing aerial shots over the fielder.

Kane Williamson

Kane Williamson flourished and outclassed David Warner in the game of strike rate. Yes, you read that right.

Williamson, for the class and composure he brings to the batting crease can easily be classified as a defensive batsman or the one who could just anchor in a T20 innings. He does not get that luxury of setting up games batting at the top for the Sunrisers though.

But, Williamson has made a name for himself with whatever opportunities he has got in the IPL. On the night against the Super Kings, a completely different avatar of Williamson was to the fore as the Sunrisers struggled for the sluggish display of batting by David Warner and Manish Pandey—players known as T20 specialists. He walked out to bat only in the 18th over after the departure of Warner and was equal to the task from the second ball.

At the end of the 18th over, the Sunrisers were 138 and were facing the threat of ending up with an under-par score on a pitch that appeared to be true in nature.

Williamson had other ideas though and from a two-ball five, he jumped to a seven-ball 24 hitting Shardul Thakur from the midwicket part of the ground to the third man. He literally toyed with Sahrdul’s mind and Dhoni’s field placements to lead the Sunrisers to a score of respectability.

Williamson’s success with the bat will put enormous pressure on Warner to come up with the performance to lead the men in orange out of the deep slumber they find themselves in at the moment. Williamson, on the other hand, will keep chipping away with making most of the opportunities at whatever positions in the 14th edition of the IPL.

Flops

David Warner

For any batsman of this era in T20 cricket, staying at the crease for the first 102 balls of the tidal 120 balls in an innings without playing a match-winning innings is a terrible outcome. But, when that failing batsman is David Warner with all the flamboyance and all the shots of the game up his sleeves, it becomes a colossal failure.

Warner started off the innings for the Sunrisers, and when he was walking back to the pavilion on the first ball of the 18th over, he must have felt the whole weight of the world fell upon him. In his 55-ball innings, he could muster only 57 although he hit 3 fours and two sixes. 

What went wrong for him then?

The thing that has plagued Warner this season so far is his lack of intent and assertiveness at the crease. Against the Super Kings as well, he was static in the middle and did not take an aggressive approach against Jadeja as a proactive move and instead aired for them to commit a mistake. He hit his first six on the 89th ball of the innings and it spoke volume of his struggles in the middle.

He did not come to this edition of the IPL on the back of many games behind him as he was ruled out for the majority of the series against India due to injury. He played some match in the Australian domestic circuit but the spark and domination he bats with have been really missing from Warner this season.

Jagadeesha Suchith

Jagadeesha Suchith would understand the harsh reality of the game. He fell agonisingly short of becoming an unlikely hero that won the Sunriers their last game against the Sunrisers by hitting sixes in Chennai. In the following game, he was the culprit for the Sunrisers who opened up the tap for Ruturaj Gaikwad who was struggling for timing at a run a ball 17.

He was assigned the task of bowling the seventh over after the powerplay as Warner would have hoped to bring Rashid into the attack to go on a full-on choke mode. However, Suchith provided Gaikwad with loose deliveries on a platter and whatever pressure the bowlers have had on Gaikwad was let off in a span of three balls.

Suchith played the game against the Super Kings only because Abdul Samad has not recovered from his injury and the Sunrisers could show enough confidence in Abhishek Sharma. However, the next few games of the Sunrisers scheduled to be played on similar pitches, the Sunrisers selectors will have to take another call on whom they want to replace Suchith with.

The Sunrisers nosedived further to the bottom of the points table while the Super Kings have strengthened their grip on the table with a resounding comeback after a disastrous season last year.