IPL 2019: CSK thrash RCB by 7 wickets in tournament opener at Chepauk

Chennai Super Kings opted to field against Royal Challengers Bangalore in the opening encounter. Harbhajan Singh rocked the top-order with a three-wicket burst as Chennai Super Kings shot out Royal Challengers Bangalore for a paltry 70 in 17.1 overs

An exceptional all-round performance by defending champions Chennai Super Kings beat Royal Challengers Bangalore by 7 wickets in the opening encounter of Indian Premier League on Saturday. Veteran Shane Watson opened the innings alongside Rayudu for CSK. Watson, who had scored a brilliant ton in the last IPL game he played (IPL final 2018), was struggling tonight and it was RCB’s Chahal who went through his defence to bowl him out for a duck.   

After Watson’s early departure, Suresh Raina (19) didn't score much but he won the race against Virat Kohli to become the first batsman to scale 5000 runs in the history of IPL. The pitch wasn't an easy one to bat on but 70 was too small a total to defend for RCB even though they stretched CSK for nearly 18 overs.

Chennai Super Kings opted to field against Royal Challengers Bangalore in the opening encounter. Harbhajan Singh rocked the top-order with a three-wicket burst as Chennai Super Kings shot out Royal Challengers Bangalore for a paltry 70 in 17.1 overs.

On a slow Chepauk turner, RCB skipper Virat Kohli and Parthiv Patel stepped out to open the batting for their squad. CSK picked only three overseas players in their playing XI. It was for the ninth time in IPL history that a team has only fielded three overseas players.

To everyone’s surprise, it was 5 without loss at the end of the first over when Dhoni brought veteran spinner Harbhajan Singh early into the attack and it was Kohli who had to face Harbhajan in the second over,maybe because the ball was not coming on to the bat as expected. The Chepauk pitch turned out to be spinner friendly as came the huge moment in the match when Harbhajan took out the RCB run-machine as he departed in single digits (6 runs). Kohli attempted to hit Bhajji for a maximum but found Jadeja at deep mid-wicket.

After Kohli, left hand batsman Moeen came into bat and was stunned by the extra bounce off the deck. Ali closed the face of his bat early, lofting the ball in the air as Harbhajan took a sitter. Losing two early wickets had put visitors RCB in a spot of bother.

At the end of power-play, RCB were 33-2 after 6 overs with ABD and Patel on the crease. CSK’s Tahir dropped De Viliers batting at 9 and it seemed that luck had finally started to favour RCB but just few balls later, Bhajji being sensational with the ball, struck for the third time, taking out AB de Villiers for 9 as Sir Jadeja grabbed a stunner.

In the 8^th over, star hitter Hetmyer charged for a single, but thanks to the miscommunication between Hetmyer and Patel, the Raina- Dhoni combo, setting up a perfect example of ‘communication’, took out Hetmyer for zero, who was stranded in the middle.

Debutant Shivam Dube failed to make an impact on his debut. The young batsman smashed the bat in air after he edged it hands a simple catch to Watson at slip. With Tahir taking out Dube, half of the RCB team was back in the pavilion in just 10^th over.

Soon after in the 11^th over, Dhoni made no mistakes to grab an easy catch behind the stumps as experienced spinner Ravindra Jadeja gave a bit flight to the ball to which batsman de Grandhomme got a faint outside edge and departed for 4 of 6 balls.

Tahir was on fire as he bowled an absolute deceiver to strike Navdeep Saini on the pad in the first ball of the 12^th over. Tahir persuaded Dhoni to go upstairs for the review and it turned out to be a successful one as Saini was given out.

After Saini’s departure, right handed batsman Yuzvendra Chahal came to bat, only to drag a googly with a poorly timed sweep shot in the 14^th over. Harbhajan Singh made no error to grab his catch at deep mid-wicket as he lofted his hand up in the air after doing so.

Yadav and Patel were bowled out by Jadeja and Bravo for scores of 1 and 29 respectively. With this, CSK bowled out RCB for 70 runs in 18th over as spinners Harbhajan Singh and Imran Tahir took the most advantage of a spinner friendly pitch at Chepauk, picking up three wickets a piece.