Five-time champions Chennai Super Kings’ hopes of advancing to the playoffs suffered another jolt as Sunrisers Hyderabad pulled off a five-wicket victory, their first in Chennai.
The visitors too will have to win their remaining five matches to stay in the reckoning.
Chasing 155, Sunrisers struggled with regular fall of wickets on a slow wicket where batting wasn’t easy. However, Ishan Kishan (44 off 34 balls) and Kamindu Mendis (32 not out off 22 balls) kept them going.
An unbroken 49-run partnership off 31 balls between Mendis and Nitish Kumar Reddy took them home with eight balls remaining. The presence of dew in the second half made the task of the batters easier. A few days ago, Mahendra Singh Dhoni had said that CSK’s aim would be to build a team for the future.
Keeping that in mind, they handed Dewald Brevis, fondly known as Baby AB for his similarities in style with AB de Villiers, a debut, which meant Rachin Ravindra had to miss out. Ayush Mhatre, CSK’s youngest player ever at 17, opened the innings with Shaik Rasheed while Deepak Hooda replaced Vijay Shankar in the middle order and Sam Curran was included too.
Powerplay woes
Rasheed was dismissed in the first ball of the match. Mhatre got off to another flyer, throwing caution to the winds and smashing boundaries against the likes of Mohammed Shami and Pat Cummins.
But as CSK seemed to steady their innings, Curran and Mhatre were dismissed in consecutive overs.
They ended the Powerplay at 50/3. The side has lost 15 wickets in the first six overs this season, the second-most after Sunrisers and Punjab Kings’ 16.
Struggle against spin
Ravindra Jadeja’s hitting skills against the spinners didn’t pay off too.
Ambidextrous Mendis, bowling right-arm off-spin to left-hand batters and left-arm orthodox to right-hand batters, stifled Jadeja with his accuracy, eventually dismissing him for 21 off 17.
Brevis showed shades of his brilliance and smashed Mendis for three sixes inone over.
He eventually was caught on the ropes off Harshal Patel’s bowling for 42 off 25 balls. Patel finished with 4/28.