CSK have been winning and losing alternatively in the last one week. The team have not been playing at their impactful best in IPL 2024 and they lost to GT in an one-sided game, too. Immediately, they had to recover and play against a team like RR at Chennai. This time CSK boys have turned up and mainly, bowlers showcased their biggest strength on a slow pitch.
Young Simarjeet Singh, who had been injured for more than a year, recovered and delivered his best for CSK, in an important match. RR have won the toss and elected to bat first as they failed twice chasing. But their openers looked clueless and stuck on a wicket that did not assist stroke play. Yashasvi Jaiswal(24) and Jos Buttler(21) did not have any impact during powerplay.
Maheesh Theekshana could control both the batters being a spinner in the powerplay. Simarjeet Singh got both the openers in his consecutive overs. Sanju Samson scored 15 runs from 19 balls and Riyan Parag tried his best to salvage situation. He scored 47 from 35 and played till the final ball. Dhruv Jurel(28) helped him and RR to score 141/5 in 20 overs.
With such a low score, RR bowlers did not have much option but to go for wickets. Rachin Ravindra scored 27 runs from 18 balls using powerplay. Daryl Mitchell scored 22 runs from 13 balls and Shivam Dube scored 18 runs from 11 balls. Ruturaj Gaikwad held innings together scoring 42 runs from 41 balls.
While everyone anticipated MS Dhoni to come out to bat, Sameer Rizvi came out and scored 15 runs from 8 balls. CSK won the match by 5 wickets and scored 145/5 in 18.2 overs. Simarjeet Singh took 3 wickets and got Player of the Match award. Now, they play against RCB on 18th May and it could be an eliminator as well depending on SRH and LSG matches.