The Chennai Super Kings crashed to their third successive defeat in IPL 2022 thanks to a very poor batting effort against the Punjab Kings.
CSK skipper Ravindra Jadeja won the toss and elected to bowl first. It was, by all means, the correct decision but he was let down by his batters in the second half of the game.
PBKS lost skipper Mayank Agarwal (4) and Bhanuka Rajapaksa (9) early but the wickets were quickly forgotten as Liam Livingstone (60 off 32) decided to give everyone watching a glimpse of his immense talent.
The right-hander batter simply tore into the CSK bowling attack with fours and sixes to make light of the early wickets. He was ably supported by Shikhar Dhawan (33) and the duo put on 95 runs in just 52 balls to get the PBKS innings back on track.
But the wickets of Dhawan and Livingstone in quick succession gave CSK some hope. Chris Jordan turned in a very fine bowling performance to record bowling figures of 4-0-23-2 as the yellow brigade managed to restrict PBKS to 180/8.
In reply, CSK were quickly reduced to 36/5 thanks to a combination of poor shots and good bowling. Vaibhav Arora showed that he isn’t express pace but he can move the ball both way and that is always a good thing.
The match was almost over at that point but Shivam Dube at least made the proceedings less painful to watch for the CSK faithful with a fine 57 off 30 balls. He was the only batter to get going for the defending champs.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni made a dour 23 off 28 balls and he only succeeded in delaying the inevitable. CSK were eventually bowled out for 126.
For PBKS, Arora (2/21) and Rahul Chahur (3/25) put in a good performance with the ball
Brief scores:
Punjab Kings: 180/8
Chennai Super Kings: 126 all out (18 overs)