A total of 33 sixes rained on the M Chinnaswamy Stadium and catches were embarrassingly spilled before and after Ajinkya Rahane brilliantly saved a six in a match that witnessed over 400 runs till Royal Challengers Bangalore had to score 19 off the last over. Matheesha Pathirana, a 20-year-old seamer from Kandy, was reverse ramped for six but held his nerve and nailed the yorker on his fourth ball to seal an eight-run win for Chennai Super Kings in Bengaluru on Monday.
The highest ever IPL total against RCB at their home warranted an unprecedented chase. And since there can’t be any holding back while keeping up with an asking rate of 11, such targets can make the best chaser in the game do strange things. The second ball of his stay, Virat Kohli shimmied down the pitch to whip impact sub Akash Singh through midwicket for four. But an encore one ball later resulted in the ball taking an inside edge off Kohli’s massive swing, clip his boot and roll onto his stumps.
The drama wasn’t over. Mahipal Lomror was dropped by Maheesh Theekshana on zero, then MS Dhoni let through an easy catch of Faf du Plessis when the RCB captain was on zero. Once again in the 11th over, rubbing into CSK’s wounds, Theekshana spilled a waist-high caught-and-bowled chance of du Plessis when he was on 52. When chances to atone for those reprieves came, Dhoni trusted no one. First came Glen Maxwell’s wicket, Dhoni holding on to a high, swirling catch off Theekshana in the 13th over. Du Plessis skied another one next over, and again Dhoni let no one else come close.
The home side had made massive gains by then though. When Maxwell was dismissed, RCB still needed 86 off 47 after a 126-run partnership off 61 balls for the third wicket between Maxwell and du Plessis. In visible discomfort, probably due to his back, du Plessis took the initiative to lay into CSK’s hard length bowling. Tushar Deshpande was first targeted, as du Plessis hammered him for two fours and a six in a 17-run over. By the time Singh was clobbered for a six and two fours in the fifth over, Maxwell too was in the thick of the action as RCB started to turn it around. When du Plessis reached his fifty in 23 balls, RCB were flying.
Maxwell was at his demolishing best, hitting eight sixes at will, flaying CSK’s bowling and getting to his fifty off just 24 balls. But it also takes only 10 good balls and a few catches to turn the match around. CSK didn’t make it easy for themselves after removing RCB’s batting spine, dropping Dinesh Karthik in the 17th over when he was looking to break free. Thankfully, it didn’t cost them too much as Theekshana finally caught him off the penultimate ball of that over.
At one of the smaller IPL venues, CSK came out firing after being put into bat and RCB had no answer. Mohammed Siraj was the only RCB bowler with a single-digit economy (7.5), thanks largely to a two-over opening spell where he conceded just six runs and dismissed Ruturaj Gaikwad. But between Devon Conway and Moeen Ali at No 6, no batter struck at less than 184.44. Conway and Shivam Dube together accounted for 11 of the 17 sixes hit by CSK. And when they were batting together, CSK added 80 runs in just 37 balls. This, after the 20-ball 37 by a reincarnated Ajinkya Rahane, was just the platform CSK needed to aim for a crazy total.
With the 200 up by the 18th over and Dhoni still padded up, Moeen Ali and Ravindra Jadeja had the licence to go berserk. Scratching around, Jadeja was willing to retire hurt to make way for Dhoni but was asked to stay put. A six off Maxwell–forced to complete the 20th over after Harshal Patel had bowled two beamers–alleviated his misery but Dhoni had to come in after Jadeja was caught in the deep.
