The scorecard will show Chennai Super Kings beat Delhi Daredevils by only 13 runs, after setting a steep target of 212. But those who watched the match will know that Delhi were nowhere in the match, despite having all the makings of a thriller.
CSK were playing after losing to Mumbai Indians and coach Stephen Fleming saying that they had picked a Chennai-based squad and needed to get used to the Pune conditions, Delhi were coming from a emphatic win over Kolkata Knight Riders under new captain Shreyas Iyer.
But in the end, it is the Super Kings who are back at the top of the table while Daredevils’s sixth loss in eight games means they are all but out of the play-off race.
Here are the biggest talking points from Monday’s match.
Watson at start, Dhoni at death, carnage all throughout
There was drama from the first ball of the innings as a Trent Boult peach had Shane Watson trapped but the umpire said no. Delhi were confident and went for the review, but lost it with the innings to go as there was no conclusive evidence.
In the context of the match, the reprieve made all the difference as the Australian (78 off 40) went on a rampage setting the platform for the team’s fourth 200-plus total in eight games this season.
Against Mumbai Indians, a match CSK lost by eight wickets, they had got a similar platform at 91/1 after 10 overs. But they ended up with 169/5 with only 78 runs off last 10 overs. But on Monday, they went from 96/0 after 10 to 211/4 after 20 overs with 116 runs scored in the last 10 overs. The difference? MS Dhoni at death, well of course.
Even with a bad back, Dhoni (51* off 22) was at his devastating best with his second fastest IPL fifty and 74 runs in the last five overs.
The batting order was reshuffled to get in du Plessis and the man in form, Ambati Rayudu was down at No 4. But that didn’t stop him from piling on the runs with the captain as DD bowlers struggled.
Delhi did have a brief window of opportunity, when du Plessis and Suresh Raina were dismissed in successive overs. But who can stop vintage Watson and Dhoni? The two batsmen who have shown repeatedly through the IPL that power-hitting can also be an art, with muscled boundaries and flat strokes looking like finely crafted shots. It was a masterclass in big-hitting.
Pant, Shankar fightback can’t hide DD’s harakiri
This is the IPL, anything is possible. So 212 is not too much of an ask from a lineup that had scored 219, albeit batting first, and has a number of explosive batsmen. Rishabh Pant (79 off 45) and Vijay Shankar (51* off 31) showed the kind of fight needed to chase such a score. But Delhi Daredevils were hindered by a familiar problem, the regular lack of forethought from the batsmen.
Prithvi Shaw once again gave a glimpse of his prowess before holing it out, as did Colin Munro, to give Asif wickets in successive overs in the Powerplay. A large part of Delhi’s troubles is the failure of big-ticket buy Glenn Maxwell with the bat, which makes the middle-order more brittle than it should be. But the coup de grace was the hara-kiri running between the wickets as captain and in-form batsman Iyer ran a non-existent single while Pant stayed rooted to his crease.
At one point, DD needed 55 off 18 balls, again, a gettable score. But Ngidi got his debut wicket in the 18th and gave us many variations of “Lungi got the better of Pant” puns to all but put an end to the fight back, even as Shankar hammered three sixes off DJ Bravo’s 19th over to get to his fifty.
In a convoluted way, it was almost fitting that Pant fell right at the cusp. It showed the gap that there has to be filled between a Dhoni and a Pant, two names often taken together when it comes to Team India in the shortest format. It showed that why Dhoni with a bad back is a better finisher than most, and it showed what the talented Pant needs to do in order to fill those boots.
Not always a pacer’s world
Delhi’s experienced overseas pair of Boult and Liam Plunkett leaked 100 runs in seven overs. Chennai had a brand new new-ball pair of IPL debutants Lungi Ngidi and KM Asif and it worked wonders.
It was just another example of how IPL, or even T20 cricket, is always going to be a bed of thorny roses for pacers. There is a very small margin for error.
Take the 19th over from the young Avesh Khan for example. An impressive pacer, he was more than equal to the task of bowling to Dhoni at death and almost got him, had Colin Munro not spilled a dolly. Apart from an ugly full toss off the last ball that Dhoni sent soaring into the stands, he bowled a neat mix of yorkers and speedy low full tosses to keep the batsman in check. He conceded just five runs off the first five balls, but got one length wrong and was punished. Shankar tried a different tack, bowling a wide line to stop Dhoni from hitting, which erred as much as it worked.
On the other end, Ngidi hit the deck hard and gave away only one and six runs off his first two overs, creating enough pressure for the batsman to go after Asif who got two in two. But at death, Bravo was taken apart, after spinners had done the job of keeping things tight in the middle overs.
Sums up the fast bowler’s conundrum, doesn’t it?
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