Twitter Reactions: Jos Buttler leads RR to a one-sided win over CSK

After the highs of the weekend doubleheaders in the Indian Premier League (IPL), it was a pretty tame start to the week. Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Rajasthan Royals (RR) played out a one-sided encounter in Abu Dhabi with the Steve Smith-led side winning it easily thanks to a brilliant knock from Jos Buttler. However, it was their bowling which did the job to restrict the opposition.

Earlier, luck smiled at MS Dhoni at the toss as he had no hesitation in opting to bat first. But it turned out to be the only thing going CSK’s way in the first innings. None of their batsmen could back their skipper’s decision to bat. Sam Curran opened once again with Faf du Plessis but the latter got out early. Shane Watson also was back in the hut soon while Curran tried to score runs quickly.

But it was a tough going for him as well. The pressure rose with every dot ball and the youngster threw his wicket away after scoring 22 off 25 balls. Ambati Rayudu too couldn’t do much as he got out to Rahul Tewatia. At 56/4 after 10 overs, there was not much for MS Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja to do apart from rebuilding the innings.

The duo rotated the strike even as the spinners, Tewatia and Shreya Gopal, bowled a heap of dot balls. They ended their four-over spells with the figures of 1/18 and 1/14 respectively which is a terrific effort even though the pitch was extremely slow. In the meantime, Jadeja and Dhoni trudged along to complete a 50-run stand for the fifth wicket but there was no intent to score run quickly.

When the time arrived, the latter got run out in an attempt to pick an extra run off the misfield. Jadeja though made sure he stayed unbeaten till the end. However, that made little difference to the total with CSK posting only 125 runs on the board after 20 overs with the southpaw remaining unbeaten on 35 off 30 balls with four boundaries.

Buttler scores a vital half-century in the chase

The 126-run chase wasn’t a huge score but the pitch was tricky enough to bluff the Royals batsmen. Ben Stokes played his strokes in the powerplay but couldn’t score more than 19 runs as he got bowled off Deepak Chahar. Soon Robin Uthappa and Sanju Samson also walked back and at 28/3 in the fifth over, CSK sensed a chance to comeback into the game.

Accordingly, they started putting pressure on Steve Smith and Jos Buttler. However, the duo was experienced enough to keep the scoreboard ticking. For some strange reasons, MS Dhoni didn’t bowl his spinners much and continued with his pacers even after the powerplay.

Smith struggled early on but his partner was batting superbly. With no pressure of required run-rate, the RR skipper made sure that held one end up while Buttler started opening up as he got his eyes in. The England wicket-keeper took toll of some toothless bowling from CSK and got to his half-century in the process too. Rather, Buttler ended up scoring 70 runs off the unbeaten 98-run partnership with his skipper.

RR ended the chase in the 18th over itself improving their net run-rate and jumping to the fifth place in the points table after their fifth win. On the other hand, CSK have nothing much left in the tournament now as they are almost knocked out.

Here’s how Twitter reacted: