Extending their stellar record at the Chapauk Stadium, the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) have won their first match of the ongoing 16th season of the Indian Premier League by 12 runs, against the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG).
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In what turned out to be an uncharacteristically high-scoring match at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, CSK barely managed to restrict the LSG batters as its pace bowling attack was taken to the cleaners and smashed all across the park.
Defending a challenging score of 217 runs, the pacers collectively leaked as many as 142 runs in their 11 Overs, with their most experienced pacer Deepak Chahar (4-0-55-0) returning with worst bowling figures in IPL history.
Had it not been for the two spinners in Moeen Ali (4-0-26-4) and Mitchell Santner (4-0-21-1), CSK would have struggled big time to even take the match till the death Overs.
MS Dhoni Scolds CSK’s Bowlers for Leaking 18 Extras
CSK skipper MS Dhoni, who was unhappy with his bowlers bowling the No-Balls during the first match of the season as well, came down heavily on them tonight regarding this facet of their game again, after initially expressing his surprise with the quickness of the surface tonight.
While the bowlers bowled a total of 13 Wides, most of which were a result of bowling the deliveries away from the batters’ reach, it were the three No-Balls bowled by the 27-year-old Tushar Deshpande which Dhoni deemed simply unacceptable.
While reprimanding all his bowlers in general, the 41-year-old even went on to remark that he would simply not entertain no-balls or extra Wides from them the next game onwards, or they will have to simply play under a new captain.
“Fast bowling we need to slightly improve. Need to bowl according to the conditions. What is important is to keep an eye as to what the opposition bowlers are doing. One more thing is they’ll have to bowl no no-balls or extra wides. Or they’ll have to play under a new captain. It will be my second warning and then I’ll be off,” remarked a frustrated Dhoni during the post-match presentation.
Ruturaj shines again; Dhoni makes crowd go gaga with Sixes off Mark Wood
Earlier, after being invited to bat first, CSK’s opening batter Ruturaj Gaikwad (57 off 31) smashed his second-consecutive fifty in the ongoing season, and stitched a century partnership alongside his partner Devon Conway (47 off 29).
With the duo having already laid the foundation for a massive score, Ambati Rayudu (27 off 14) and MS Dhoni (during the final Over) then took the team total to 217/7 in their 20 Overs.
Dhoni’s back-to-back Sixes off pacer Mark Wood acted as the perfect icing to the cake, as CSK played a match at the Chepauk Stadium after 1,426 days.
