Surprisingly, CSK, which has been on a dream run, suddenly suffered a loss to Hyderabad — a team that lost three matches on the trot
The 33rd encounter of the ongoing edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) was a battle of titans as the Kane Williamson-led Sunrisers Hyderabad hosted Chennai Super Kings at Hyderabad's Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium. The finalists of the previous edition of the tournament promised to put up an exciting show for the fans, who came out in large numbers.
As the action panned out, it was a rather anticlimactic end that fans witnessed at Uppal. The hosts routed the Super Kings in a one-sided game to register their fourth win and hand CSK their second loss of the season.
Surprisingly, CSK, which has been on a dream run, suddenly suffered a loss to Hyderabad — a team that lost three matches on the trot. What made Chennai end up on the losing side? Let's look at the factors which took the game away from the top-seeded team:
For an 8pm game, the spectators started to come in from 6pm. As the stadium started to fill in, the support for the Men in Yellow was a little more than that for the home side. And just when the Chennai Super Kings players came to the ground for warm-up, almost every cricket fan started chanting 'Dhoni... Dhoni'. Little did they know that he will not be playing against Hyderabad.
However, Dhoni's absence was not only felt by the fans, but was felt even in the Chennai Super Kings camp, and the defending champions were not able to handle the pressure well in Dhoni's absence.
The Chennai Super Kings openers were off to a flying start and eventually went on to register a 79-run stand for the first wicket. However, both openers lost their wickets in quick succession as Shane Watson was castled by Shahbaz Nadeem and in the very next over, Vijay Shankar got the better of Faf du Plessis. Suresh Raina and Ambati Rayudu found it hard to get going on the sluggish pitch but they were looking somewhat comfortable against the Sunrisers bowlers.
But Rashid had some other plans. In the 13th over, Rashid bowled a quicker delivery and the ball crashed into Raina's pads. Raina was trapped right in front, but he was not quite convinced. He went for a review but the replay showed clearly that the ball would have hit the stumps. Three balls later, Kedar Jadhav got out in similar fashion, putting the visitors on the back foot.
David Warner and Jonny Bairstow may not have clicked in the past two encounters but the case was quite different on Wednesday. Chasing 132, the two were off to a blistering start with Warner being the aggressor. They hammered the opposition bowlers all-around the ground to give their side a perfect start.
In this process, they registered yet another 50-run partnership. Once Warner got out, Bairstow took the responsibility and stayed till the end to help his team register a six-wicket win. It eventually helped SRH to move up to the fifth spot.
Read Exclusive COVID-19 Coronavirus News updates, at MyNation.