Chennai Super Kings have rarely been tested by their opponents so far in this IPL season. Drawing consistent performances from their key men, CSK have been able to sit at the top of the points table with relative ease.
On Thursday evening though, the men in yellow were tested hard by the home team, Kolkata Knight Riders. CSK were not able to match the intensity shown by their opponents. KKR convincingly won the match by seven wickets. In fact, the scorecard failed to reflect the spineless display by the boys from Chennai.
What went wrong?
After being put into bat by the KKR skipper, CSK lost Dwayne Smith in the very first ball of the match. So what? Have we not seen similar situations where one of the two run machines at the top gets out and the other compensates?
Yeah, we have.
Even on Thursday McCullum looked like he would carry on regardless. He took on the Australian paceman Pat Cummins, giving his figures a pasting despite a first-ball wicket. Having got off to a solid start, CSK were expected to accelerate.
But on Thursday, KKR made changes to the usual CSK script.
Raina struggled against the pace of his countryman, Umesh Yadav. He eventually succumbed to the pressure created by dot balls.
Howver, Script Changer in Chief was the 44 year-old Chinaman bowler, Brad Hogg. He didn’t let McCullum inflict more damage on his men. The CSK opener was trapped in front of the stumps off the first ball of Hogg’s first over.
Du Plessis was looking confident after scoring three boundaries off Piyush Chawla in the over before Hogg’s first one. But Hogg’s wrong ‘un halted the show. Striking twice in one over, he removed the two men who have been amongst the runs this season.
Dhoni fails yet again
When was the last time the CSK skipper made a substantial contribution with the bat? We might have to scour the Internet to find out the answer.
Dhoni the batsman has failed consistently in the past few months. His performance in Australia was pathetic. His poor showing in recent Test series made him announce his retirement from the longer version of the game.
In the recent past he hasn’t been able to score runs consistently in the shorter versions either.
The story is worse in this edition of IPL. He has consumed a lot of deliveries and put pressure on the batsmen following him in the batting order. He has tried batting at different positions. But nothing has worked.
Is this ia loss of form, or something more serious? Either way, ime is running out for the man from Ranchi. He has lost touch with his ability to score big.
On Thursday evening, he failed to read a googly from the KKR leggie Piyush Chawla and got his stumps castled. The CSK skipper could not add more than one run to his team’s score.
Why is Ravindra Jadeja still in the team?
Imagine you’re Jadeja, the man with assured place. How thrilled you’d be to always find your name on the team sheet, considering you yourself have forgotten the last time you had a match winning performance.
On Thursday, Jadeja let go a chance to accelerate the innings at the end. He seriously deserves to be dropped. It will be interesting to see how long Jadeja remains in the team in spite of repeated failures.
CSK’s middle order looked hopeless against KKR yet again. With Dhoni and Jadeja failing to perform, the middle looks vulnerable.
Only Pawan Negi impressed with his batting performance. He scored a quickfire 27 off 13 balls to take CSK to a decent total of 165. Once Ashwin recovers from the injury, should Dhoni try Negi instead of Jadeja?
Bowling unit misfires
CSK badly missed Ravichandran Ashwin on a track that assisted wrist spinners. The spin department looked lily-livered as Jadeja leaked runs. Negi got the ball to turn but failed to make a strong impact. MS Dhoni didn’t help Negi’s cause as he missed a chance to stump Uthappa.
The purple cap holder Ashish Nehra didn’t look threatening enough to halt KKR’s progress in the second innings. Bravo, who was impressive with the ball when the two teams met in Chennai, conceded runs at a rate of 13.50 per over.
Debutant Ronit More impressed, but his spell wasn’t enough to restrict Robin Uthappa and Andre Russell from taking the game away from CSK.
In spite of the loss, CSK remain on top of the points table. But can they stay there for long? The team will have to resolve quite a few pressing issues as soon as possible if they are to be the dominant force in the IPL.
Kolkata Knight Riders (169 for 3) beat Chennai Super Kings (165 for 9) by 7 wickets.
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On Thursday evening though, the men in yellow were tested hard by the home team, Kolkata Knight Riders. CSK were not able to match the intensity shown by their opponents. KKR convincingly won the match by seven wickets. In fact, the scorecard failed to reflect the spineless display by the boys from Chennai.
What went wrong?
After being put into bat by the KKR skipper, CSK lost Dwayne Smith in the very first ball of the match. So what? Have we not seen similar situations where one of the two run machines at the top gets out and the other compensates?
Yeah, we have.
Even on Thursday McCullum looked like he would carry on regardless. He took on the Australian paceman Pat Cummins, giving his figures a pasting despite a first-ball wicket. Having got off to a solid start, CSK were expected to accelerate.
But on Thursday, KKR made changes to the usual CSK script.
Raina struggled against the pace of his countryman, Umesh Yadav. He eventually succumbed to the pressure created by dot balls.
Howver, Script Changer in Chief was the 44 year-old Chinaman bowler, Brad Hogg. He didn’t let McCullum inflict more damage on his men. The CSK opener was trapped in front of the stumps off the first ball of Hogg’s first over.
Du Plessis was looking confident after scoring three boundaries off Piyush Chawla in the over before Hogg’s first one. But Hogg’s wrong ‘un halted the show. Striking twice in one over, he removed the two men who have been amongst the runs this season.
Dhoni fails yet again
When was the last time the CSK skipper made a substantial contribution with the bat? We might have to scour the Internet to find out the answer.
Dhoni the batsman has failed consistently in the past few months. His performance in Australia was pathetic. His poor showing in recent Test series made him announce his retirement from the longer version of the game.
In the recent past he hasn’t been able to score runs consistently in the shorter versions either.
The story is worse in this edition of IPL. He has consumed a lot of deliveries and put pressure on the batsmen following him in the batting order. He has tried batting at different positions. But nothing has worked.
Is this ia loss of form, or something more serious? Either way, ime is running out for the man from Ranchi. He has lost touch with his ability to score big.
On Thursday evening, he failed to read a googly from the KKR leggie Piyush Chawla and got his stumps castled. The CSK skipper could not add more than one run to his team’s score.
Why is Ravindra Jadeja still in the team?
Imagine you’re Jadeja, the man with assured place. How thrilled you’d be to always find your name on the team sheet, considering you yourself have forgotten the last time you had a match winning performance.
On Thursday, Jadeja let go a chance to accelerate the innings at the end. He seriously deserves to be dropped. It will be interesting to see how long Jadeja remains in the team in spite of repeated failures.
CSK’s middle order looked hopeless against KKR yet again. With Dhoni and Jadeja failing to perform, the middle looks vulnerable.
Only Pawan Negi impressed with his batting performance. He scored a quickfire 27 off 13 balls to take CSK to a decent total of 165. Once Ashwin recovers from the injury, should Dhoni try Negi instead of Jadeja?
Bowling unit misfires
CSK badly missed Ravichandran Ashwin on a track that assisted wrist spinners. The spin department looked lily-livered as Jadeja leaked runs. Negi got the ball to turn but failed to make a strong impact. MS Dhoni didn’t help Negi’s cause as he missed a chance to stump Uthappa.
The purple cap holder Ashish Nehra didn’t look threatening enough to halt KKR’s progress in the second innings. Bravo, who was impressive with the ball when the two teams met in Chennai, conceded runs at a rate of 13.50 per over.
Debutant Ronit More impressed, but his spell wasn’t enough to restrict Robin Uthappa and Andre Russell from taking the game away from CSK.
In spite of the loss, CSK remain on top of the points table. But can they stay there for long? The team will have to resolve quite a few pressing issues as soon as possible if they are to be the dominant force in the IPL.
Kolkata Knight Riders (169 for 3) beat Chennai Super Kings (165 for 9) by 7 wickets.
