IPL 2018, CSK vs RCB: 5 unnoticed things from the game

It was a clash between the 2 most popular sides in the IPL as the Virat Kohli led Royal Challengers Bangalore took on the mighty Chennai Superkings at Pune. MS Dhoni won the toss and inserted the opposition in to bat. Bangalore got off to a poor start as they lost all their big guns quite early in the innings.

Ravindra Jadeja was the star with the ball, picking up 3 wickets for just 18 runs. Some big batting by Tim Southee at the end got them to a score of 127 runs. In reply, Chennai lost the big-hitting Watson early but a sensible partnership between Ambati Rayadu and Suresh Raina steadied the ship.

Chennai did lose a bunch of wickets in the middle but in the end, they cruised home with 12 balls to spare. We take a look at some of the things that the fans might have missed in today’s game.

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#1 Eight bowling options for Chennai

Chennai’s bowling attack came in the line of fire after the crushing defeat against Kolkata the other day. So, MS Dhoni decided to beef up his bowling options for today’s game. In this season, teams have played with 6 or 7 bowling options.

RCB, in fact, played the first few games with just 5 bowling options. Chennai played with no less than 8 bowling options in today’s game and these were not just part-time bowling options. Dhoni was so much spoilt for choices today that he did not even give the ball to Shane Watson.

Apart from Dhoni, Rayudu and Dhruv Shorey, all the other players could have been utilised for bowling.

#2 Jadeja’s first 3 wicket haul in 3 years

Ravindra Jadeja has not been in the best of the form with the ball in this year’s IPL. Dhoni has lost faith in Jadeja as a bowler. In fact, he has been vastly underbowled this season.

However, Jadeja was the pick of the bowlers today, conceding just 18 runs and picking up 3 crucial wickets in his 4 overs. He dismissed RCB’s skipper with his very first ball and then accounted for Mandeep Singh and the well set Parthiv Patel.

This was the first 3 wicket haul for Jadeja in more than 3 years. His last came in the game against the Rajasthan Royals at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in 2015.

#3 Virat’s first ever single digit score against CSK

Virat Kohli loves batting against the Chennai Superkings. He has amassed more than 700 runs against CSK and has an average of 42 against them. However, things did not go according to the plan today as Kohli looked uncomfortable at the crease, struggling to hit the ball cleanly.

He could only muster 8 runs of the 11 balls he faced today before falling to the arm ball of Ravindra Jadeja. It turned out to be his lowest score against the two-time champions.

#4 Southee’s highest score in IPL

Tim Southee is known for providing some meaty blows down the order. He has done it on quite a few occasions in the past for the black caps. With the batsmen having an off day, Southee took it upon himself to give the bowlers some score to bowl to.

His 36 runs of 26 balls included 3 fours and a massive six. This, in fact, was the highest score for Southee in the history of the IPL. Unfortunately, it did not turn out to be enough for the Bangalore side.

#5 Chennai’s fielding continues to be poor

With such a dominant bowling performance, one thing that the viewers might have missed was CSK’s poor fielding. Chennai’s fielding had come under scrutiny in the last game against Kolkata.

Fielding is something Dhoni emphasizes a lot on and it was expected that Chennai would bounce back as a stronger fielding unit. However, the fielders continued with where they had left off against KKR.

Ambati Rayadu failed to hit the stumps with Parthiv Patel miles out of the crease while Harbhajan dropped a simple a simple return catch of Patel. Lungi Ngidi gave away 4 overthrow runs with a wild throw while the ice cool Dhoni missed a run-out chance of Tim Southee. Chennai’s fielding needs to improve if they are to win the IPL this year.

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