With some breathtaking heroics from Ravindra Jadeja at the end, the Chennai Super Kings clinched a nail-biting victory against the Kolkata Knight Riders by 6 wickets at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium on Thursday.
Put into bat first after losing the toss, Kolkata Knight Riders got off to a decent start with their openers Shubhman Gill and Nitish Rana added 53 runs for the first wicket, before Shubhman was dismissed for 26 in the very first ball he faced after the first strategic time out.
Post the wicket of Shubhman Gill, it was a Nitish Rana show for KKR. Despite losing two quick wickets at the other end, Rana played an excellent knock as he smashed 87 off just 61 balls, before he was dismissed by Lungi Ngidi in the 18th over.
A late flurry of shots from Dinesh Karthik(21 off 10) in the end took KKR to a competitive total of 172/5 at the end of their 20 overs.
Chasing a competitive total, Chennai Super Kings got off to a pretty similar kind of start as the Knight Riders. The CSK openers Shane Watson and Ruturaj Gaikwad added 50 runs for the first wicket before Watson was dismissed by Varun Chakravarthy in the 8th over.
Ambati Rayudu joined Ruturaj Gaikwad in the middle and gave CSK a great base for a solid finish as they added 68 runs for the second wicket off just 43 balls.
Rayudu played a good innings of 38 off just 20 deliveries before he was dismissed by Pat Cummins in the 14th over and was quickly followed by their skipper MS Dhoni, who became the victim of Varun Chakravarthy’s mystery for the second time in the tournament, and was dismissed cheaply in the very next over.
Young Ruturaj Gaikwad once again showed promise for the Super Kings, as he played a tremendous innings even after losing partners at regular intervals. Ruturaj scored 72 runs off 53 balls before he was clean bowled by Pat Cummins in the 18th over.
With CSK needing 30 runs of the last two overs, Ravindra Jadeja(31* off 11) smashed 20 runs off the 19th over as Pat Cummins was all over the place.
Young Kamlesh Nagarkoti had a daunting task ahead of him to defend just 10 runs of the final over, and he did pretty alright for major part of the over giving away 3 runs of the first 4 balls, before Ravindra Jadeja smoked the last two balls out of the park to eventually take CSK to a thrilling victory and further narrow KKR’s chance to qualify for the Playoffs.
SCORECARD
Kolkata Knight Riders(KKR) – 172/5 (20/20 overs)
BATTING
Nitish Rana 87(61)
Shubhman Gill 26(17)
BOWLING
Lungi Ngidi 2/34(4)
Ravindra Jadeja 1/20(3)
Chennai Super Kings(CSK) – 178/4(19.1/20 overs)
BATTING
Ruturaj Gaikwad 72(53)
Ambati Rayudu 38(20)
BOWLING
Varun Chakravarthy 2/20(4)
Pat Cummins 2/31(4)
CSK WON BY 6 WICKETS
Player of the Match – Ruturaj Gaikwad
Tata Altroz Super Striker of the Match – Ravindra Jadeja
Unacademy Let’s crack it Sixes – Nitish Rana
Cred Power Player – Devdutt Padikkal
TODAY’S MATCH – Kings XI Punjab vs Rajasthan Royals
Venue – Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium
Toss – 7pm IST
Match Time – 7:30pm IST
Match can be viewed on the Star Sports Network and the Disney + Hotstar VIP subscription
