IPL 2018: Match 52, DD vs CSK- Who Said What

The match between the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and the Delhi Daredevils was a dead rubber. It had no significance from Delhi Daredevils’ (DD) point of view, but Chennai needed a victory to confirm their position in the top two. After a reasonable bowling performance, they stumbled during the run chase and fell short of the target by a significant margin of 34 runs

Harshal lifts Delhi

Bearing in mind the dew factor, MS Dhoni won the toss and elected to field first. Shreyas Iyer and Prithvi Shaw opened the batting, but Shaw was nipped out by Deepak Chahar. However, Iyer and Rishabh Pant compiled a half-century stand which helped DD garner some momentum into the innings. Thereafter, Lungi Ngidi dismissed both in the same over, which brought the match back into the balance.

Maxwell played a horrendous stroke, which led to his dismissal. Abhishek Sharma, who played well last time, couldn’t make any impact this time around. Harshal Patel scored 36 runs and gave the innings much-needed impact. He laid into Dwayne Bravo and ravaged 26 runs off the last over and the blitzkrieg propelled Delhi’s score to 162 runs in 20 overs.

Delhi salvage pride

Shane Watson and Ambati Rayudu opened the batting and made a steady start. Watson faltered throughout his innings and Amit Mishra ended his struggle. Rayudu carried over from where he left against the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and compiled yet another half-century in 29 balls. He was dismissed by Harshal Patel after which Sandeep Lamichhane got rid of Suresh Raina.

Sam Billings couldn’t contribute much and became Mishra’s second victim. In the last ten overs, they needed 93 runs and the asking rate escalated to nearly 14 with five overs to spare. Even the likes of Dhoni struggled to make proper connection. Following the CSK skipper’s dismissal in the 19th over, the match turned out to be one-sided and Delhi romped home.

MS Dhoni, the skipper of Chennai Super Kings, said

I think the wicket slightly got more difficult in the second half. I think it was evident, nobody was middling it well in our innings. Wicket kept getting slower and slower. Their bowlers also bowled really well. Difficult to predict how the wicket behaves, sometimes it behaves well and sometimes it turns like this. I think if we batted better, we needed someone to score those extra 15-20 runs.

(Decision to bowl first) Specially looking at the wicket, not that fussed. Have to be practical looking at the wicket as long as we know where we went wrong. Something going wrong is a part and parcel but if you know the reason why it went wrong, it becomes easier to come back from that. We know the reasons and what we could have done slightly different.

Overall, yes, slightly disappointed with the loss but I don’t think we could have done much. What I told them is not to look at the points table, take it one game at a time. Keep strengthening what your strengths are, at the same time also strengthen your weaknesses. We also want to improve in certain areas. Apart from the openers, we need to get partnerships in the middle order.

We’ve not used too many batsmen in this tournament so far but anybody can get opportunities from hereon. They need to be mentally ready for this than physically. I think apart from that, we are doing well. If we get our death bowling sorted out, it will be very good.

Still have one more game and then into the eliminators , so let’s see. We’ll try to manage it, that’s what the reality is. At the end of the day, you can give 100 different plans to the bowlers, depends on his strength and the conditions. Lot of times, you’ll have to shuffle the bowlers according to how the wicket is doing, that’s what we’ll have to do in the playoffs.

Those are the games when you need to be at your best. It includes everybody, anyone can have an off day but if someone can chip in with one or two overs, we can cover it up. That’s the real time when everyone has to play as a team.

Shreyas Iyer, the skipper of Delhi Daredevils, said,

We were craving for this victory, and coming against one of the best teams is satisfying. All departments did well and lived up to the expectations. It wasn’t easy to bat on this wicket, and Harshal coming at number 7 in that last over was amazing. That performance was not expected and that just goes to show what he is here for. That last over played a major role in getting us to 162. We were never lacking in preparation from the beginning of the tournament, it’s just that we were not able to execute what we had planned in the nets and all the three departments weren’t clicking together, which happened today and in all the games that we won.”

Harshal Patel, the Player of the Match, said

I think bowling was the more difficult skill on the pitch, considering how the ground and pitch are, and especially with the dew coming into play in the latter part of the innings. We stuck to our plans and executed really well.

It’s all about consistency, so they are more important than batting cameos. You can bowl one really good over, and one over can lose you a game. I was watching Bravo’s hand really well, and I know he is good at bowling slower balls, so I just backed myself to not get deceived, and that was my only plan: to watch the ball well and react to whatever he was bowling.

It’s about consistency: how often I can produce performances like this and win games for my team. That’s important for me. I have been studying my own game really well. It was about not trying to do anything out of my capabilities and stick to what I have. I have enough skill to perform at this level. It was just about being confident and executing my skills well.

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