Twitter Reactions: Experienced CSK trump Delhi Capitals for the third time to set up finals date with MI

When it comes down to clinching the must-win situations, experience always wins. The Chennai Super Kings (CSK) kept faith on the same set of batsmen for the whole season and that paid dividends in the second qualifier against the Delhi Capitals. Two of their senior players, Faf du Plessis and Shane Watson, slammed half-centuries to kill the chase early after a slow start.

Chasing a tricky total of 148, the Africa-Australian combo almost ran each other out in the first over itself. But a brain fade from the opposition made sure that nobody got out. While Watson struggled in the powerplay, his partner held the fort to take the team’s total past the 50-run mark. Du Plessis continued to manoeuvre the ball then even as Watto found his groove.

The duo started toying with the bowlers and added 81 runs for the first wicket in 62 balls. The partnership was broken Trent Boult after Du Plessis mishit a short ball to the deep mid-wicket fielder on 50. Watson took control of the chase then to smash Keemo Paul 25 runs in a single over and this is where the result became a foregone conclusion.

The shoulders also dropped for the Capitals and despite Watson getting out exactly on 50, CSK were always on the way to seal a victory and they did it easily with six wickets in hand.

CSK spinners choke DC

Earlier, the Capitals didn’t get off a good start with Prithvi Shaw’s poor run against CSK continuing. Deepak Chahar got the better of him for the third time in a row. Even Shikhar Dhawan was sent back soon by Harbhajan Singh after the southpaw looked good for a brief while. Colin Munro came out to bat at number three and the move seemed to have worked when he played some attractive strokes.

But Ravindra Jadeja trapped him as the Kiwi batsman holed out in the deep. When it spins, MS Dhoni is the king of the jungle and the same happened in Vizag. He was in complete control of the proceedings as the Capitals kept on losing wickets. Rishabh Pant kept his cool all this while and played some streaky strokes. He batted with maturity and looked to take the game deep much like Dhoni does.

However, he got out in the penultimate over and this is where DC ended up a few runs short. Though Pant scored 38 off 25 balls which was a decent effort and most importantly, he didn’t throw his wicket away. Trent Boult and Ishant Sharma enterprisingly eked out 16 runs in the final over as the Capitals posted 147 runs on the board after 20 overs.

Unfortunately for them, CSK’s openers killed the contest in the first half of the chase itself and the Delhi franchise continue to wait to feature in their first IPL final.

Here’s how Twitter reacted:

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