M 4

Match Report CSK vs RR – IPL 2020 Match 4
The contest between CSK and RR is not one of the most glamorous ones in IPL. People tend to forget,
that these 2 teams were the first ever finalists in the history of the tournament. However, that contest
aside the Royals and the Super Kings have had some rivetting contest over the last few years and it was
indeed a spectacle to watch the rivalry between the T20 superstars and the Dad’s army.
RR was dealt with the heaviest of blows much before they faced their first ball of the tournament.
Stokes and Butler, the stalwarts of the team’s batting were out of this match, due to different reasons.
While Butler is expected to feature in the playing 11 from next match onwards after his quarantine, the
team is yet to have any concrete update on Ben Stokes.
CSK won the toss and chose to chase on a flat pitch, with short boundaries. I must say, Smith took an
excellent decision to open the innings alongside young Yashasvi Jaiswal. The importance of sheet
anchors in the T20 game has been emphasized time and again by experts and the best position for a
sheet anchor to play his role is from the opening spot. I hope Smith continues to open along with Butler,
once the later returns to the team.
After the initial wicket, it was a Sanju Samson show altogether. He is an excellent batsman, when he is
hitting down the ground and the CSK bowlers allowed him to do that. It was a rare off day for both the
CSK spinners who could not use the slowness of the pitch to good effect. While good length or short of
good length is an ideal length to bowl on these slow picthes, both Chawla and Jadeja kept on pitching
the ball up in the slot, allowing Samson to hit through the line. However, that takes nothing away from
the clean hitting abailities of Samson. He scored 9 sixes in his blistering innings of 74 off 32 balls and he
will hope to continue this form through the tournament, unlikelast year. A good IPL can indeed open
national doors for this talented batsman from Kerala.
After Samson fell to Ngidi, a brief collapse followed, where some intelligent bowling from CSK and smart
field placement from Dhoni ensured that RR were unable to run away with the match in the first innings
itself. There is particular merit in how Dhoni used Chawla to complete his 4 overs, inspite of the leg
spinner being hammered for 47 in his first 2 overs. Chawla was used against an under confident
Uthappa, who has historically shown discomfort against spin at the beginning of the innings. Ultimately
Chawla conceded just 8 off his next 2 overs and picked the prized scalp of Uthappa.
Captain Smith was the glue, who held the innings together with his innings of 69 and ensured that the
innings did not fall away after Samson’s dismissal. CSK was successful to pull back the game as well, as
they manged to restrict RR to 186-7 in 19 overs. CSK was dreaming of restricting RR to under 200, when
Jofra Archer struck. Lungi Ngidi, who has made a name for himself in death bowling, went through a
nightmarish over to concede 4 consecutive sixes to Jofra Archer, along with 2 NO balls. A 30 run final
over ensured that RR breached the 200-run mark and RR went into the break with the momentum in
their favour.
CSK started the chase well. The jitters shown at the crease, in the last match by the opening duo were
no more there. Watson’s feet were moving fast and he was unleashing his cover drives and pulls to good
effect. Infact CSK raced to 54 in their first 6 overs. Problems began once the RR spinners started to
dominate the proceedings. Unlike their CSK counterparts, Rahul Tewatia and Shreyas Gopal bowled just
short of a good length and extracted maximum purchase from this dry pitch at Sharjah.
The spinners bamboozled the entire top order of CSK, accounting for Watson, Curran, Vijay and Ruturaj.
It was traditional spin bowling at its very best with the bowlers looping the ball and turning it from good
length- a very rare pleasant sight to visualize in the fast paced franchise cricket world.
Du Plessis played a lone hand with a bit of support from Jadhav. Du Plessis is looking in great touch,
from the first match itself and at some point of time in the league, CSK will look to reinstate him at the
top of the order with Watson. Though it was a highly entertaining chase, at no point of time in the chase
did CSK look like overhauling the gargantuan target set by RR.
Now let’s try to answer the burning question that is going to brew up post this match- Dhoni’s batting
position. The first reason why questions will be raised is that his strategy did not work today.
Historically, in sports entertainment when a captain’s strategy works, he is called a mastermind, and it
fails he is subjected to questions. No different for MSD- had Sam Curran gone on and scored a brisk half
century today, it would have been called a masterstroke. Secondly, questions will be raised, because
Dhoni batted pretty well when he came to bat at 7. There was a bit of rustiness, as you would expect but
it was typical Dhoni at the fore, smashing sixes at will in the last over. But the game was already over by
then. Had Dhoni come in at 5, would the result have been in favour of CSK? You never know.
Though its impossible to read MSD’s mind, I would say the most probable reason why he brought
himself down in the pecking order is that, he was not particularly confident of his performance due to
lack of match practice. Yes, he has been training for the IPL, but it needs to be kept in mind that Dhoni
played his last competitive game 1.5 years ago. So, probably he felt his fellow mates, with match
practice, would have performed better in the upper middle order.
However, it’s a surity that since Dhoni looked in form tonight and he was striking the ball sweetly, fans
would increasingly find him coming up the order in the future matches. And we as cricket fans dearly
hope that the legend “finishes it off in style” this IPL.

M 4

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

M 4

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

M 4

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Match Report CSK vs RR – IPL 2020 Match 4

You might also like