IPL 2021: Match 19, CSK vs RCB – Who Said What

The 19th match of the Indian Premier League 2021 got underway between Chennai Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bangalore. The three-times champion CSK finally broke the winning streak of RCB by taking away the glory by 69 runs. After winning the toss, the men in yellow decided to take up the field with the bat first and the hammering by Faf du Plessis (50) and Ruturaj Gaikwad (33) kept the team going.

However, if a game has to be called the one-man show, the man is none other than Ravindra Jadeja. The skilled all-rounder of CSK made sure to contribute in each and every aspect of the game. Crazy hitting by Jadeja (62* off 28)  in the ultimate over, fetched CSK 37 runs as they posted 191 runs on the board. Three wickets alongside and some heroic athleticism on the field helped him bag the player of the match award.

Fine start couldn’t go long for RCB against CSK

Though Harshal Patel picked three wickets for RCB, it was him who became the victim of Jadeja’s brutal hitting in the final over. Chasing the target, Devdutt Padikkal (34) and Virat Kohli got off to a great start but the ultimate collapse thereafter resulted in RCB’s heavy loss. Sam Curran and Shardul Thakur picked one wicket each for RCB.

Losing skipper, Virat Kohli said-

You have to look at it the right way. It’s come at the right time for us. You have to understand the things that went wrong. I think this is positive feedback for our side. It’s good to get a performance like this out of the way early in the season. We were there most of the moments in the game, but the key ones we lost badly. Jaddu displaying his skills took the game away from us. You can probably say one guy beat us. We will continue to give him responsibility (Harshal) he got both the set batsmen out and plucked all the momentum away. We have to look at this in the right way. Brush it aside and learn from it. We will continue to use guys at 3 because we have Maxi and AB to follow. We will continue to use that depth. We’ll throw in guys there and ask them to change the game for us.

Winning skipper, MS Dhoni said-

Jaddu is somebody who can change the game on his own. In the last few years we’ve seen significant change in batting and it’s worth it to give him that extra bit of time, extra deliveries. The bowlers have found it difficult to contain left-handers, and that helps as well. You can’t really predict the quantum of victory. There’s no control to how many runs or wickets. When we started we had the conversation about whether to bat or bowl. It’s a good wicket but I felt the spinners had something up their sleeves and I felt that extra few runs Jadeja made helped. 165 would have been par, and once you get 25 extra the opposition has to come a little harder. You cannot make your strategy on the assumption of what dew will do – frankly, some games have been high scoring, some have been low scoring. You have to assess every game and today we made the right decision to bat. We’re not doing anything drastically different from what we did last year. Me and Fleming, we keep saying that we focus on the process. You gain more respect if you keep following your path when you’re under pressure. I think that is something that gave a lot of confidence to the players. Credit to the players. Everybody would have felt the pressure in the first game because it was a lean season.

Player of the match, Ravindra Jadeja said-

I’ve been working hard on my fitness, skill, everything. Luckily it paid off. It’s been a tough job being allrounder, you have to do all departments. During training I don’t work on all three, I do skill work one day, training one day, fitness one day. I was just looking to hit it hard. Mahi bhai told me he (Harshal Patel) would bowl somewhere outside off and luckily I connected. Today was not my day [because he didn’t take a catch].