Chennai Super Kings’ top order collapsed as they suffered their first defeat of the IPL season, going down to Royal Challengers Bengaluru.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru made it two victories from two games in the Indian Premier League, as their bowling attack ripped through the Chennai Super Kings in a crushing 50-run triumph.
RCB shared the run-scoring responsibilities during their innings, with five batters scoring above 20 as they finished 196-7, led by a half-century from captain Rajat Patidar.
That total proved easily defendable as Chennai’s top order collapsed. Josh Hazlewood and Yash Dayal both took two wickets in a single over as the Super Kings were held to a mere 146-8.
Noor Ahmad (3-36) was one of few bright sparks for Chennai, and he accounted for both RCB openers as he edged out in front in the Purple Cap race.
Ahmad had Phil Salt (32) stumped following a solid start from the visitors, also bringing an end to Virat Kohli’s disappointing innings. The IPL’s all-time leading run scorer had already survived an lbw review and narrowly avoided being run out by the time he failed to clear Rachin Ravindra at deep midwicket, walking for 31 off 30 balls.
Ahmad sent stumps flying to account for Liam Livingstone (10) and clinch his treble, but Patidar did much of the damage for RCB, hitting 51 off 32 balls before finally being caught by Sam Curran in the penultimate over.
The chase was one to forget from the off as Chennai fell to 8-2 in the second over. Taking the ball for the first time, Hazlewood had Rahul Tripathi (5) caught by Phil Salt at midwicket, then Ruturaj Gaikwad helped his sixth delivery to MS Bhandage for a four-ball duck.
Having top-scored in Sunday’s win over Mumbai Indians, Ravindra did his best to stem the tide, but team-mate Deepak Hooda (4) was caught behind by Jitesh Sharma, with the original decision of not out reversed upon review.
Sam Curran (8) followed off the bowling of England team-mate Livingstone, and though Ravindra finally got some support from Shivam Dube, that partnership was short-lived as Dayal replicated Hazlewood’s quickfire double.
Dayal bowled a 135km/h corker to get the big fish Ravindra (41), and later in the 13th over, another rasping delivery was chopped on by Dube (19). That effectively dashed Chennai’s hopes, and even MS Dhoni’s 30 runs off 16 deliveries could not raise the home fans’ spirits.
Data debrief: Chennai suffocated
While RCB will have been satisfied enough with their total of 196-7, they had work to do early on if they were to make things comfortable.
They completely suffocated Chennai’s top order, with 13 false shots played by the hosts in their first four overs and two wickets lost to Hazlewood, who ultimately finished 3-21.
In the fifth over, Bhuvneshwar Kumar chipped in with the dismissal of Hooda, his record-extending 73rd powerplay wicket in IPL action. Sandeep Sharma, second in those charts, has 60.
The only bright spots for Chennai came in the guise of some individual achievements. Ravindra Jadeja (25) became the first player in IPL history to have taken 100 wickets and scored 3,000 runs, bringing up that latter figure with a six in the 18th over.
Ahmad, meanwhile, added three wickets to the four he collected on Sunday, moving ahead of Shardul Thakur (six) for the most dismissals in this year’s competition. Sportsmax
