CSK has slipped another game which could have won very easily. A failure from the middle-order batsmen has cost them a defeat against Kolkata Knight Riders by 10 runs. In the first half of the game, it was Rahul Tripathi (81) who has done a phenomenal job to give a respectable score for KKR.
KKR’s captain Dinesh Karthik won the toss and elected to bat first. Finally, KKR changed their batting order by sending Shubman Gill and Rahul Tripathi for opening. Both of them gave a good start for their team. However, Gill failed to last long and got out in the bowling of Shardul Thakur. Even Nitish Rana and Sunil Narine failed to make any impact. The rest of the batsmen like Russell, Karthik, Morgan, and Cummins weren’t able to score anything big. It was Rahul Tripathi who kept the scoreboard running. In the first match he opened, this youngster scored a stunning half-century. By the end of 20 overs, KKR got all-out for a score of 167. DJ Bravo took three wickets. Sam Curran, Karn Sharma, and Shardul got two wickets each.
Chennai got an early blow while chasing this total. Their opener Faf du Plessis fell in the third over of the innings. However, another opener Shane Watson built a good partnership with Ambati Rayudu. Their 68-run stand had put CSK in a comfortable position. But both of them got out in consecutive overs. Watson also scored his second half-century of this season. Later, everyone thought that MS Dhoni will finish the formalities for CSK but he fell in the bowling of Varun Chakravarthy. In the very next over, Russell got the wicket of dangerous Sam Curran. After that, Kedhar Jadhav and Ravindra Jadeja failed to take their team to the shores of victory and ended the game by scoring 157 for a loss of five wickets.
Scorecard:
Kolkata Knight Riders: 167/10 (R Tripathi 81, P Cummins 17*, DJ Bravo 3/37)
Chennai Super Kings: 157/5 (S Watson 50, A Rayudu 30, V Chakravarthy 1/28)