It was the last ball of third over when Chennai Super Kings captain MS Dhoni came up to the stumps to keep against Ashish Nehra. He took this step after Bangalore Royal Challengers’ captain Virat Kohli came out his batting crease and had just punched a straight six off Nehra.
Before that, Kohli had whipped one off Nehra’s relatively short ball for boundary. Dhoni could gauge that if Kohli is allowed to step out of his crease at will, it could pave a downfall for his team.
In the fifth over when Nehra came face to face against Kohli, Dhoni’s smart move of coming up to the stumps clicked. Kohli was out while trying out an over-ambitious flick shot to give Nehra’s first wicket of the match.
The lanky based pacer was close to getting his second wicket in the same over after Chris Gayle survived a close appeal. But within a span of few deliveries, he struck again by trapping AB de’Villiers in front of the wicket.
The match was as good as over for RCB after Gayle was out in the 14th over. By then, RCB had lost four wickets and looking desperately to make a worthwhile score. A slightly better innings from Dinesh Karthik and Sarfaraz Khan saw RCB reaching a score of 139 at the loss of eight wickets.
In which, Nehra finished with three and got immense help from R Ashwin, who yet again proved why he is the best off-spinner in India today. Even Mohit Sharma delivered a tight spell to stop support the CSK strike-bowler.
Part-timer Suresh Raina did concede more runs than what was expected of him. But he took the wicket of Gayle to crush the RCB hope of making a substantial score.
In reply, CSK didn’t have a fluent chase to knock out RCB of the IPL in the eliminator in Ranchi on Friday, but a win is a win — it doesn’t matter how it comes. For the second time in a row, CSK did lose their opener Dwayne Smith early, but Dhoni’s team was always in the game.
Losing faf du Plessis and Raina in the 10th over did hurt CSK for a while. But Dhoni took the responsibility on him along with Michael Hussey. The fact that Brendon McCullum wasn’t there at the top of the batting order, Hussey ensured that CSK wasn’t missing him much in such a crucial game. He batted the way he used to bat during his heydays.
Hussey finished with a score of 56 off 46 balls that stabilized CSK’s chase. Even Dhoni was there almost till the end before Ashwin hit the winning run to round up the all-important match by three wickets with a one ball to spare.
For RCB, Mitchell Starc and Yuzvendra Chahal did try their best to put a lot of pressure on CSK, but it was not their day. This match belonged to Dhoni, Nehra and Hussey.
