Once again, Chennai Super Kings have shown why they are the five-time IPL champions.
Chennai Super Kings’ victory against Punjab Kings was crucial and there was a lot of pressure on their team. The main reason for the pressure was that in the last five consecutive matches whenever Punjab Kings and Chennai Super Kings had faced each other, Punjab had the upper hand.
Looking at it, it seemed like the match was a bit messed up, a bit stuck, because once again we saw a batting failure with Chennai, just like what happened last time at Chepauk. This time again they could only put up a score of 167 runs on the board and a major contribution came from Ravindra Jadeja.
It is worth noting that Chennai had a great start during the batting, they had scored 60 runs in six overs and then the match suddenly turned around, just like the script was almost the same at Chepauk, but this time one thing was different, it was their bowling.
Because it was confirmed that they were defending a low total, so the decision to bring Mitchell Santner back into the team was very important. He is a left-arm orthodox spinner who does not turn the vall, he pitches it very well and his line and length are impeccable.
The biggest thing about Mitchell Santner is that he does not concede runs and Ruturaj Gaikwad’s captaincy today for the first time it seemed that he was two steps ahead, he knew that the low score was defendable, so the first over should be given to the spinner and he did that.
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Santner bowled the first over and conceded just three runs, from there the pressure started to build and Tushar Deshpande, who was the only fast bowler in the powerplay as Deepak Chahar was not playing, Mahesh Theekshana was not playing, Mustafizur Rahman qas not playing.
Tushar Deshpande has also emerged as a very mature bowler and he conceded a couple of fours in his overs but one thing was certain, he was bowling on the good length and he got two wickets on two balls and both the heroes of the previous match for Punjab against Chennai, Johnny Bairstow and Rilee Rousseau, both got out from there.
From there, PrabhSimran Kaur and Shahsank Singh started a partnership but once again the Punjab batsmen could not read the game or play the conditions and gave away their wickets easily in an attempt to play aggressive shots.
At one point Punjab had lost five wickets for just 20 runs and whenever you chase, if you lose 5 or 6 wickets for 20 runs, whether you are chasing just 150 or 200, you are way behind in the game and something similar happened with Punjab.
Ravindra Jadeja had spent 9 runs in the first over and overall his figures were 4-20 in four overs, taking three wickets, which means he made a great comeback and broke the backbone of Punjab’s batting and he was supported by Mitchell Santner and Simarjeet Singh.
The Punjab batsmen kept playing aggressive shots, playing in the air against the conditions and in the end their entire team was all out for 137 runs.
