Twitter Reactions: CSK batsmen gasp for breath in the final overs against KKR

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) are back on track in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) as they defeated the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) by 10 runs. It was due to some brilliant captaincy from Dinesh Karthik at the back end of the innings even as his bowlers, Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy, responded in crunch situations. The spin duo kept CSK at bay in the middle overs and eventually restricted them to win the game by 10 runs.

KKR’s batting continued to struggle thanks to the unsettled order of the players. However, one man who stood up was their new opener Rahul Tripathi. Finally, they understood his role and after a quickfire innings at eight in the previous game, KKR decided to promote him. And the batsman didn’t disappoint at all. He took the attack to the opposition from the word and played shots on the up.

There was confidence in his shot-making and running and his hitting kept KKR’s run-rate over 9 in the first 10 overs. This is when he would’ve liked for some batsman to stick with them and play second fiddle while buidling a partnership. But that never happened for KKR. Wickets kept falling at regular intervals and the highest partnership of the innings turned out to be 37, for the opening wicket.

Moreover, after finally demoting Sunil Narine, they ended up sending him to bat at four where ideally, either Dinesh Karthik or Eoin Morgan should’ve walked in. Narine, however, scored 17 off just 9 balls but him batting at four didn’t make any sense at that stage. Morgan and Andre Russell couldn’t contribute much to the total and at one stage, they were 128/5 with around 28 deliveries left in the innings.

At the other end, Tripathi played a sublime knock and kept the scorecard moving with eight fours and three maximums. But he lost steam by the end of the innings and got out on 81 off 51 balls with the team’s score at 140. Karthik was in the middle in the last three overs and had a chance to redeem himself by finishing strongly. However, his travails continued KKR never got that final push to get bowled out at 167 after 20 overs.

Apart from Deepak Chahar, the other four bowlers were amongst wickets with Dwayne Bravo finally coming back to his best. He scalped three while Karn Sharma, in his first game of the season, nipped out Nitish Rana and Sunil Narine. Shardul Thakur did his job as well sending back the dangerous Andre Russell and Shubman Gill.

Spinners strangle CSK in the chase

The 168-run target was a bit tricky for CSK and their openers started cautiously. After a quiet first over, Faf du Plessis started opening up and scored a 17 off 10 balls with three fours before getting out to Shivam Mavi. However, Shane Watson and Ambati Rayudu stitched a 69-run stand to keep the team ahead in the chase. The former got to his second consecutive fifty and many were baffled to see Sunil Narine not bowling to him in the first 10 overs.

At 99/1 after 12 overs, things looked decent for CSK. But this is where things started to turn. Narine put the brakes on the run-scoring and that led to Rayudu falling and the Caribbean spinner got the better of Watson. This is where the game started to turn. Along with Narine, Varun Chakravarthy also bowled well and they built up back to back dot balls to increase pressure.

The pitch slowed down considerably and none among Sam Curran, MS Dhoni and Kedar Jadhav couldn’t even middle the ball. Dhoni getting out to Chakravarthy proved to be the turning point eventually. Jadhav literally struggled to put bat to ball and him playing a lot of dot balls played a bit of a role in CSK losing their way in the death overs.

Ravindra Jadeja was stuck at the other end in the last over and when he got a chance, he smacked three consecutive fours. If he had played a few more deliveries, CSK would’ve been in a better position at the end of the day. Dinesh Karthik led the team well and they read the conditions better compared to the opposition and ended up winning the game by 10 runs in the end.

Here’s how Twitter reacted: