The Chennai Super Kings are indeed the best team in the IPL. Despite scoring below their expectations, they won their opening match against the Delhi Daredevils by a solitary run on Thursday. The match went down to the wire.
And when you have a captain like MS Dhoni, who doesn’t like to leave any job undone, Super Kings are always going to the victors. And Thursday’s match was no different, but for a change, the team came close to losing it.
Losing regular wickets while batting first didn’t help CSK’s cause at all. But the middle-order who made the amends and the bowlers did the rest then. Spearheaded by experienced pacer Ashish Nehra’s three quick wickets, Delhi were straight away in the back-foot. It was only the former CSK player Albie Morkel, who fought a lonely battle.
Thanks to his innings that saw a remarkable comeback by the Delhi team in the last over of the match. The visiting team needed 19 runs from just six balls. But a tired Morkel really tried his best to make a fighting 17 runs from the last over off Dwayne Bravo.
A desperate dive from Suresh Raina saved two runs in the pen-ultimate ball of the match that also saw CSK saving two runs. Still, a six off the last ball could have changed it all, but as they say, fortunate favours the brave. Ultimately and unfortunately, Morkel could only whack a four and was on the losing side.
But before CSK play their next opponent in Sunrisers Hyderabad, they are surely look to tighten up a few things. One of them being the top-order batting and the death bowling. The biggest culture of CSK is that the team management don’t lose its hope on the players after a bad game.
The team doesn’t believe in knee-jerk reactions. If Bravo had a bad last over against the Daredevils, he will be given enough time and space to comeback strongly in the next game.
And when you have the likes of Shikhar Dhawan and Australia’s David Warner in the Hyderabad team, you have to be in top form. Fortunately, CSK has the best track record against all the IPL teams. That is reason why this team is the most feared side in the competition.
Saturday’s match against Hyderabad isn’t a cake-walk as such for the home team, but it going to be interesting battle. It will be a battle between the CSK batsmen and Dale Steyn & Co. But the Super Kings have an edge!
