Chennai Super Kings (CSK) maintain their hundred per cent record at home, MA Chidambaram Stadium at Chepauk as they beat the high-flying Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) by 7 wickets on a slow surface on Monday, April 8. It all went CSK's way starting from the toss to the result as on a tricky pitch, despite KKR getting a good start in the powerplay, the Men in Yellow restricted the famed batting line-up to just 137 and chased it down without much discomfort with 14 balls to spare.
At 56/1, Knight Riders actually got off to a good start with the bat despite losing Phil Salt on the first ball of the match. However, the match turned as soon as the spinners came in to bowl after the powerplay. Ravindra Jadeja got both the set batters Angkrish Raghuvanshi and Sunil Narine in the same over to peg back KKR and if that wasn't enough, he soon accounted for Venkatesh Iyer's scalp to leave the visitors reeling.
The rescue act became long and slow for skipper Shreyas Iyer and Ramandeep Singh, who after hitting a six was cleaned up by Maheesh Theekshana. The innings never got going for KKR after that as not just the incoming batters, but the set skipper Iyer also struggled as despite a few boundaries in the end by Andre Russell, the Knight Riders fell short of a fighting total by at least 20-25 runs.
Like KKR, CSK followed the memo of starting quickly in the powerplay as Ruturaj Gaikwad and Rachin Ravindra got a few boundaries off early. However, Vaibhav Arora gave some hope to his side with Ravindra's wicket in the fourth over.
Daryl Mitchell walked in at No. 3 in place of Ajinkya Rahane, who wasn't on the field for most of CSK's bowling innings. Mitchell and Gaikwad calmed the nerves and stitched a match-winning partnership of 70 runs. Since the required rate was never a concern, both the batters paced the chase nicely by giving respect to the bowlers and getting the odd boundaries.
Gaikwad completed his fifty and it looked like both of them would take their side to victory. However, Sunil Narine, who started emphatically with the bat broke the partnership by dismissing Mitchell and incoming Shivam Dube dashed all the KKR hopes with a quickfire 28 featuring three sixes and a boundary.
Gaikwad stayed till the end and ex-captain MS Dhoni gave a customary special appearance after walking in at the fall of Dube's wicket with just three runs needed. The Super Kings chased down the total rather easily in the end as KKR would hope to come back to the winning ways against the Lucknow Super Giants on Sunday, April 14.
