Chennai Super Kings returned to winning ways with a commanding win over Kolkata Knight Riders at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on Monday as skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad’s unbeaten 67-run knock took CSK over the line with 7 wickets and 14 deliveries to spare.
CSK limited KKR to a low total of 137 runs thanks to three-fers from Tushar Deshpande and Ravindra Jadeja, while Mustafizur Rahman scalped two and Matheesha Pathirana scalped one.
Following the win CSK skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad addressed the media gathering and opened up about accessing the nature of the wicket early in the day and his thought process as he took all the right calls throughout the fixture.
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“Looking at the wicket no one felt that it would be sticky. But, after Jaddu’s first over we got to know that it was slightly sticky,” the skipper began.
CSK picked up a wicket off the first delivery of the game as Deshpande scalped Phil Salt for a golden duck, but Sunil Narine and Angkrish Raghuvanshi put up a 56-run partnership in the powerplay to steady the visitors’ innings.
However, CSK’s spinner managed to choke the flow of runs in the middle overs to great effect as Jadeja picked up a couple of scalps in his first over before completing his three-wicket haul in the second.
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“So I felt that spinners coming in from both ends would be tougher for the batsmen. Especially for KKR’s batting order who like to take the game on,” he explained.
“I though if we get two or three wickets in the span of three overs, we could have a chance to come back into the game and that’s what happened. After that from the 7th over to the 14th over we controlled the game. We did not give away too many boundaries,” he reflected.
“They were struggling to rotate the strike, as it is not their style of play. So those middle overs really helped us,” he added.
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Chennai did particularly well to contain the flow of runs off the destructive willows of Andre Russell and Rinku Singh, who were dismissed for 10 and 9 runs respectively.
“Towards the end, I felt Thushar and Shardul adapted to the conditions really well knowing that the slower ones were gripping,” the 27-year-old said.
“We did not want to give pace to Russell and we were able to do the same with Rinku as well, and that was the plan,” the skipper signed off.
KKR spinner Varun Chakravarthy echoed Ruturaj’s sentiments in terms of the nature of the pitch and how it behaved as he stated that the pitch did not act how it seemed.
The spinner also opined that taking too long to ascertain the nature of the pitch possibly cost his side the game on the day.
“I think we took too long to assess the wicket. We should have done it a bit earlier,” Chakravarthy reflected.
“But when I saw the pitch, I thought it was going to be a flat wicket. But, the way it behaved was completely different. Such things can happen at any ground,” he elucidated.
“Maybe if we had put up a bigger total, say around 160, 170 it could have been a better fight,” the spinner added.
CSK will carry out their next assignment at the famous Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai as they take on Mumbai Indians on the 14th of April, while KKR will fly back home to host Lucknow Super Giants on the same day.
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