IPL 2021 | SRH vs DC: What Experts Said as Capitals sink Sunrisers in battle of attrition

IPL 2021 | Virat Kohli fined Rs 12 lakh for slow over rate against Chennai Super Kings

After a heavy loss in the game against the Chennai Super Kings, the skipper of Royal Challengers Bangalore has been fined Rs 12 lakh for a slow over-rate. Kohli was fined only Rs 12 lakh as it was the first offence of slow over-rates by the RCB this season. Notably, other captains such as MS Dhoni, Rohit Sharma, and Eoin Morgan too have been fined Rs 12 lakh each so far in this season. Virat Kohli’s men were defeated massively by the Chennai Super Kings in the 19th game of the IPL 2021 in Mumbai. Batting first, the Super Kings posted a mammoth total of 191 runs while the Royal Challengers collapsed in the chase and could manage only 122 runs.

Hasan Ali, Rizwan put off Wesley Madhevere scare as Pakistan clinch the T20I series

Zimbabwe opener Wesley Madhevere, till the time he was in the middle, has his and team’s hopes high about chasing down Pakistan’s 165 in the 20 overs to win the series decider at the Harare Sports Club in Harare. However, it wasn’t to be as a fine spell of bowling from Hasan Ali ensured that the Chevrons remained 34 short of the target as Pakistan completed a 2-1 series victory with the win the third and final game. Chasing 166, Zimbabwe started well with the opening pair adding a quick 37 for the first wicket. It was followed by a 51 ball 65 runs stand for the second wicket between Madhevere and youngster Tadiwanashe Marumani. However, once Marumani was removed by Mohammad Hasnain, it didn’t take much time for Hasan Ali to wreak havoc, removing first the settled Madhevere and then wicket-keeper batsman Regis Chakabva to let Zimbabwe reel at 110-4 with 56 needed from 25 balls. It became increasingly difficult for the men in red to go for the target as wickets fell at regular intervals. The team could only get up to 141 at the loss of seven wickets in their full quota of 20 overs thanks to 20 run innings from Brendon Taylor. Apart from Ali’s four wickets, Haris Rauf removed two men as well while one wicket was taken by Hasnain. Earlier in the day, Pakistan skipper Babar Azam won the toss and decided to bat first. Babar, on his way to 46 balls 52, became the fastest batsman to reach 2000 T20I runs, taking only 52 innings to reach the milestone, four less than Indian skipper Virat Kohli. However, it was once again Mohammad Rizwan’s 60 balls 91 that pushed Pakistan to 165 in 20 overs. Luke Jongwe, who picked up all three wickets that fell in the Pakistan innings was the pick of the bowlers for Zimbabwe. The 26-year-old all-rounder finished with nine wickets in the entire tournament, the most for any bowler from both sides. While Hasan Ali won the Man of the Match award for his 4-18 match-winning performance, Mohmmad Rizwan was declared Man of the Series for his historic 186 runs in the tournament at an average of 186.

IPL 2021 | CSK vs RCB: What Experts said as Jadeja hands Chennai top spot

MS Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings put a halt to Virat Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bangalore’s winning streak after thumping them by 69 runs in Mumbai on Sunday. Chasing a stiff total of 193, RCB were restricted to 122/9 in 20 overs. RCB did have a decent start to the chase when Devdutt Padikkal and Kohli put up 44 runs for the first wicket, though majority of runs were scored by Padikkal during the course. The two stitched a stand of 44 before captain Kohli departed while trying to work a short ball, moving away from him through the covers off Sam Curran. The right-handed batsman just managed to edge the ball and Dhoni took an easy catch behind the stumps. Kohli’s departure was followed by a flurry of wickets in the middle, courtesy some brilliant piece of bowling and fielding from Ravindra Jadeja who had a gala time at Wankhede Stadium against RCB on Sunday. The left-arm spinner first scalped the wicket of Washington Sundar who came in at number three after inviting him to go for a glory hit on a length ball. Sundar went for the slog and took the aerial route trying to clear the fence over deep mid-wicket boundary but didn’t time his shot well and was caught by Ruturaj Gaikwad for 7 off 11. Jadeja followed Sundar’s wicket with Glenn Maxwell’s dismissal. With the kind of form that Maxwell has been in this IPL, he would have thoroughly dominated CSK bowling attack. But Dhoni played the perfect trump card and handed the ball to Jadeja when the Aussie batsman was in. The spinner totally deceived him and rattled the woodwork behind Maxwell to send him packing for 22 off 15. The Indian all-rounder didn’t just stop here and was involved in a couple of more wickets. In the 10th over of the innings, AB de Villiers tried to rotate the strike after guiding a length ball towards the covers with soft hands and called for the run. Jadeja who was stationed inside the circle quickly ran towards the ball and threw it straight to the batting hitting the bull’s eye to see Dan Christian depart for just 1 run. The left-hander was not over yet. He probably scalped the wicket of one of the most important batsmen of the RCB line up, ABD. The former South Africa captain was beaten in the turn on a length ball that was pitched around the middle stump channel and went through to clean him up for 4 runs off 9 deliveries. Jadeja eventually returned with figures of 3/13 in 4 overs. Earlier, after winning the toss, CSK opted to bat first and had a solid start to the proceedings after Faf du Plessis and Gaikwad put 74 runs on the board for the first wicket. Gaikwad though departed for 33 but Du Plessis continued with his form to notch up yet another half-century in the competition. Suresh Raina who walked in at number three also chipped in with 24 off 18. But the real drama was unleashed by Jadeja who smacked an unbeaten 62 off 28 that included five maximums and four boundaries in the process. The left-hander had a struggling start and took some time to get his eye in before unfolding an unforgettable knock. RCB paid the price for dropping him twice when he was on 1 and 2 respectively. Jadeja totally turned the course of the innings in the last over where he managed to gather 37 runs in six deliveries off Harshal Patel. The aggressive batsman began the over with four maximums including a free-hit. He then ran a couple and concluded the over with another six and a four. Patel who is the purple cap holder gave away 51 runs in 4 overs and took three wickets. Captains' corner RCB seamer Harshal Patel had gone for 37 runs in the last over but captain Virat Kohli has said that the team management will continue to back him. "You have to look at it the right way. I feel this is a positive feedback for our side. A performance like this, it is good to get this out early on in the tournament. Our start was decent enough. One guy completely beat us. Today his skill was there for everyone to see. He (Harshal) bowled well and we will continue to back him," he said. Kohli lauded Jadeja for his all-round performance and said that he is pretty happy to see him perform with both bat and ball and in the field. "His (Jadeja) ability has been there for everyone to see. I am very happy to see him perform with the bat, ball and on the field. After two months, he will be back playing for India and it is always a pleasure to see your premier all-rounder do well with the bat. When he plays well and is confident, it lets out many opportunities," he added. CSK captain MS Dhoni also praised Jaedja for his brilliant show and suggested that he is someone who has the ability to turn the game on its head alone. "He's (Jadeja) somebody who can change the game on his own and we have seen that significant change with the bat and in tj bowling as well. It's good to give him that extra opportunity, the extra few balls where he can express himself. It's also important that the individual grabs the chance when you take a decision like that and he's done that so far.” Talking about the bowling, Dhoni said that the bowlers have found it difficult to bowl against the left-handed batsmen with the slog. “Also from a strategy point the bowler's have found it slightly more difficult to contain the left handed batsman with the slog. In that way it also helps us a bit. You can't predict the quantum of win. We were also pondering whether to bat or bowl first. Heat is also a factor here. We've played a lot of cricket here. Whether the groundsmen have time to prepare the wicket, it's still a good wicket," Dhoni said. The former India captain further added that the track had something to offer to the spinners. "I felt the spinners had something up their sleeve if they bowled consistently in the right areas. You can play with the field and put extra pressure on the batsman. I felt that the extra few runs jadeja scored in the last over.. that really helps because we were looking to go close to a par score 160-170," he added. Experts' Views Commentator Harsha Bhogle lavished praise on Jadeja and hailed him for the match-winning effort. Boria Majumdar had a small complaint from Jadeja. Boria missed Jadeja's sword dance but he too hailed the performance from the all-rounder. Majumdar praised the foundation laid by Faf and Suresh Raina in the beginning of the innings. While Faf completed his fifty, Raina was among some runs. CSK's Imran Tahir was invoked in a runout after he removed Kyle Jameison with a direct hit. Joy Bhattacharjya made a brilliant observation about the act. CSK for the first time in the history of IPL failed to make a place for themselves in the playoffs in the IPL 2020. Mentioning about the previous edition Bhattacharjya said that it seems that the MS Dhoni-led side would turn the fortunes for themselves in this season. Ben Jones applauded Jadeja for the kind of performance he had unleashed against RCB. Jones said that the left-handed cricketer had won the match for CSK single-handily. RCB will now face Delhi Capitals in Ahmedabad on Tuesday while CSK will lock horns with Mumbai Indians in Delhi on Saturday.

IPL 2021 | CSK vs RCB: Superman Ravindra Jadeja drives Super Kings' thrashing of Royal Challengers

Riding on a superstar performance from Ravindra Jadeja who could do no wrong on the day, the Chennai Super Kings decimated the Royal Challengers Bangalore and leapfrogged to the top of the points table. The win— their fourth in five contests this year shows a remarkable comeback by MS Dhoni and his men after facing an embarrassing departure from the tournament without making it to the playoffs last year. Virat Kohli’s men were in control of the game for a major part of the first innings but as the Super Kings came hard at them, they crumbled under pressure to remind both their critics and fans if their older version will come back this season as well. Here, we’ll analyse the best and the worst performances of the contest between the Super Kings and the Royal Challengers. Hits Ravindra Jadeja If ever there was a debate around who is the MVP of the Chennai Super Kings in the ongoing and past few seasons, it was put down to rest by Ravindra Jadeja in quite a fashion on Sunday evening in Mumbai. Jadeja showed promise of turing a corner with the bat last year but poor bowling hurt the Super Kings last year as they were embarrassingly knocked out of the race to the playoff. Come this season, Jadeja has come to the party with the ball and picked many crucial wickets before turning up in the contest against the Royal Challengers Bangalore. He did not start off in a dominating fashion against the Virat Kohli’s men but by the time he finished his quota of four overs, commentator Pumelolo Mbangwa was exclaiming the list of achievements he had ticked. He walked out to bat ahead of Sam Curran and skipper MS Dhoni when the Super Kings were on the verge of letting go of the advantage of having wickets in hand during the middle phase. He struggled through the early part of his innings and could muster only 26 runs from the first 21 balls. However, his best was yet to come and the Royal Challengers could not see it coming. Virat Kohli had reasons for being confident at that point in the game as chasing has been easier at the Wankhede Stadium and also the Super Kings were just 154 runs at the end of the 19th over. Jadeja has been known for twirling his bat like a sword after reaching a landmark with the bat. Sadly for the Royal Challengers and Hrashal Patel, today, he brought the transformation of his bat into sword a bit early and demolished him to 37-run over. Harshal started his over with a cutter that Jadeja waited on to dispatch while two failures in executing yorkers on the next two deliveries were dismissed from his presence as well. Having conceded 19 runs of his first two legal deliveries, Patel would have felt the weight of the earth upon him and delivered a slower short ball. Jadeja was in the mood and smashed Patel with all his might and what was looking like an under-par score was taken up to a mammoth 191 runs on the back of a 29-ball 62 runs with the bat. However, a target of 192 runs was not completely out of the reach of a batting line up comprising Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers and Glenn Maxwell. Also, Deddvutt Padikkal has shown enough of his talent to make the RCB look like a formidable batting unit and he was at it once again smashing Deepak Chahar and Sam Curran to all parts of the ground. Dhoni asked Jadeja to bowl from the seventh over albeit with the presence of a left-hander in the form of Washington Sundar in the middle. Having batted for a considerable amount of time, Jadeja knew the surface was holding off the balls and when Washington tried to dispatch him out of the ground, he held back the pace along with pulling his length back. The next man in Glenn Maxwell has been the man in form for the RCB this season but he too could not overpower ‘Sir’ Jadeja today. He was castled while attempting to do the undoable task of attacking him on the day when nothing could go wrong for him. Notably, Jadeja was dropped on zero by Dan Christian when he forced a pull shot out of desperation. The RCB paid badly for the mistake, but there was no return of favour from the Saurashtra all-rounder as the Australian all-rounder was sent back to the pavilion with a direct hit which has become a signature of Jadeja in the field. A 29-ball 62 with the bat, two wickets of Maxwell and Washington, a run out of Christian were already enough performance from Jadeja to dent the Royal Challengers. However, he was not satisfied with his performance up until his next over and produced a beauty to deceive the jewel of RCB—AB de Villiers with a one that drifted in towards him before turning past his bat and hitting the stumps. With the wicket of de Villiers, Jadeja had reduced the contest between the two sides who were looking to keep their winning momentum going into a personal contest that he won with flying colours. After his heroics with the ball against the Rajasthan Royals in the last game, former England captain Michael Vaughan had expressed disbelief over not seeing Jadeja’s name in the category of Indian players with A+ contract. It appears as if Jadeja too has taken this lightly and turning the heat on. Faf du Plessis Faf du Plessis made his IPL debut some nine years ago and he has only risen through the ranks with each passing year. His growth hit a speed breaker last year as the Super Kings missed the old reliable du Plessis who could provide them solidity as well as explosive innings time after time. He did not start the current season well and was dismissed for zero against the Delhi Capitals. He put his head down and battled to regain his touch in the next game against the Punjab Kings and has never looked back since. He was back to his best in the game against the Knight Riders and the contest against the RCB showed the glimpses of old du Plessis who could charge down the wicket against pacers to hit them over the top. He started supremely, hitting a full-pitched delivery from Mohammed Siraj to off side to get the Super Kings going. He waited for opportunities on the next few deliveries and deposited Siraj over long-on to make it look like an easier wicket to bat on than it actually was. Two boundaries off Kyle Jamieson in the fourth over and the Super Kings were moving along with the scoreboard. Fall of Gaikwad slowed him down a bit as the baton of taking the game to the bowling attack was passed onto Suresh Raina. He brought his back to back fifty off 40 balls and his comeback into form augurs well for the Super Kings who have made a resounding comeback in this season so far after facing an unceremonious exit last year. Imran Tahir Imran Tahir has been rated as one of the most potent wicket-takers in the Chennai Super Kings camp albeit the four-overseas player rule does not allow MS Dhoni to play him more often. He came back to the playing XI only at the expense of an injured Moeen Ali and boy, didn’t he make it count against the Royal Challengers. He was introduced right after Ravindra Jadeja in the eighth over against the duo of de Villiers and Maxwell and he made sure the tap was not open from the other end. He yielded only five runs from his first over and the pressure got to Maxwell who got dismissed compensating for a tight over from the leg spinner against Jadeja. Tahir was at at the batsmen with his box full of tricks and bowled another over for a mere four runs. The success came in the third over when he defeated Harshal Patel who could not read a quicker one that zipped past his bat while attempting to pull. He also got an outside edge off Jamieson but could not take a wicket. A sharp catch from Raina in the fourth over handed him the second success of the game. Although Jadeja got the majority of big Royal Challengers wickets, Tahir’s role was instrumental in putting a squeeze on an otherwise flamboyant batting line up. Flops Harshal Patel Harshal Patel has had some special homecoming to the Royal Challengers side after the Delhi Capitals traded him before the auction earlier this year. He was coming into the game against the Super Kings as the purple cap holder and also established his credentials with three big wickets of Suresh Raina, du Plessis and Rayudu. However, things started to unravel for the right-armer when Ravindra Jadeja waited in his batting crease and put all his eight and quality against him. The 20th over he came on to bowl as the last over of his four-over quota turned out to be the joint-most expansive over in the 14 year-long and running history of the IPL. His cutters were picked off early by Jadeja while the execution of yorkers was wayward, to say the least. He would call himself luck for Jadeja to miss a chance to hit him for six sixes in an over. Patel must have enjoyed the laurels of getting too many wickets in the death overs when batsmen don’t put a big price tag on their wickets but he will have to digest the failures of batsmen getting the better of him as well o some days, like the one against the Super Kings. Virat Kohli Virat Kohli and his team’s dream run in the IPL 2021 led to social media users making fun of the year 2021, and it was always a case of them wondering that how long before the real RCB turn up in IPL. The day finally came and it all unravelled against the Chennai Super Kings. The Royal Challengers had regained control of the game after a cluster of wickets but Harshal Patel squandered all of that momentum in a span of six balls. Kohli should have gone to Harshal Patel and calmed the nerves down to help the bowler in the wake of the brutal onslaught but that aspect of his captaincy went missing. Also, the onus of providing a rollicking start to the Royal Challengers was on his and Padikkal’s shoulder in attempting to chase a big total. He got going with a freebie from Deepak Chahar but could not go beyond the third over and was flummoxed by Sam Curran. The Royal Challengers needed their skipper Kohli, who has been a chase master in all his career to stand up tall against the Super Kings. His departure put pressure on the remaining batsmen and failures for both de Villiers and Maxwell meant the men in red and gold were behind the game right from the start of the chase. The Super Kings would be elated at making it four out of four wins after making a poor start to the tournament this year. Any weather of the sides of IPL would point out many chinks in their armour but the team has found ways to overcome all of that and now stand in a good position to qualify for a coveted playoff position. On the other hand, the Royal Challengers would like to move on from the contest against the Super Kings as one bad day in the office. However, they would be disappointed for letting the game drift away from their grasp.