Riding on a superstar performance from Ravindra Jadeja who could do no wrong on the day, the Chennai Super Kings decimated the Royal Challengers Bangalore and leapfrogged to the top of the points table.
The win— their fourth in five contests this year shows a remarkable comeback by MS Dhoni and his men after facing an embarrassing departure from the tournament without making it to the playoffs last year.
Virat Kohli’s men were in control of the game for a major part of the first innings but as the Super Kings came hard at them, they crumbled under pressure to remind both their critics and fans if their older version will come back this season as well.
Here, we’ll analyse the best and the worst performances of the contest between the Super Kings and the Royal Challengers.
Hits
Ravindra Jadeja
If ever there was a debate around who is the MVP of the Chennai Super Kings in the ongoing and past few seasons, it was put down to rest by Ravindra Jadeja in quite a fashion on Sunday evening in Mumbai.
Jadeja showed promise of turing a corner with the bat last year but poor bowling hurt the Super Kings last year as they were embarrassingly knocked out of the race to the playoff.
Come this season, Jadeja has come to the party with the ball and picked many crucial wickets before turning up in the contest against the Royal Challengers Bangalore.
He did not start off in a dominating fashion against the Virat Kohli’s men but by the time he finished his quota of four overs, commentator Pumelolo Mbangwa was exclaiming the list of achievements he had ticked.
He walked out to bat ahead of Sam Curran and skipper MS Dhoni when the Super Kings were on the verge of letting go of the advantage of having wickets in hand during the middle phase.
He struggled through the early part of his innings and could muster only 26 runs from the first 21 balls. However, his best was yet to come and the Royal Challengers could not see it coming.
Virat Kohli had reasons for being confident at that point in the game as chasing has been easier at the Wankhede Stadium and also the Super Kings were just 154 runs at the end of the 19th over.
Jadeja has been known for twirling his bat like a sword after reaching a landmark with the bat. Sadly for the Royal Challengers and Hrashal Patel, today, he brought the transformation of his bat into sword a bit early and demolished him to 37-run over.
Harshal started his over with a cutter that Jadeja waited on to dispatch while two failures in executing yorkers on the next two deliveries were dismissed from his presence as well. Having conceded 19 runs of his first two legal deliveries, Patel would have felt the weight of the earth upon him and delivered a slower short ball.
Jadeja was in the mood and smashed Patel with all his might and what was looking like an under-par score was taken up to a mammoth 191 runs on the back of a 29-ball 62 runs with the bat.
However, a target of 192 runs was not completely out of the reach of a batting line up comprising Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers and Glenn Maxwell. Also, Deddvutt Padikkal has shown enough of his talent to make the RCB look like a formidable batting unit and he was at it once again smashing Deepak Chahar and Sam Curran to all parts of the ground.
Dhoni asked Jadeja to bowl from the seventh over albeit with the presence of a left-hander in the form of Washington Sundar in the middle. Having batted for a considerable amount of time, Jadeja knew the surface was holding off the balls and when Washington tried to dispatch him out of the ground, he held back the pace along with pulling his length back.
The next man in Glenn Maxwell has been the man in form for the RCB this season but he too could not overpower ‘Sir’ Jadeja today. He was castled while attempting to do the undoable task of attacking him on the day when nothing could go wrong for him.
Notably, Jadeja was dropped on zero by Dan Christian when he forced a pull shot out of desperation. The RCB paid badly for the mistake, but there was no return of favour from the Saurashtra all-rounder as the Australian all-rounder was sent back to the pavilion with a direct hit which has become a signature of Jadeja in the field.
A 29-ball 62 with the bat, two wickets of Maxwell and Washington, a run out of Christian were already enough performance from Jadeja to dent the Royal Challengers. However, he was not satisfied with his performance up until his next over and produced a beauty to deceive the jewel of RCB—AB de Villiers with a one that drifted in towards him before turning past his bat and hitting the stumps.
With the wicket of de Villiers, Jadeja had reduced the contest between the two sides who were looking to keep their winning momentum going into a personal contest that he won with flying colours.
After his heroics with the ball against the Rajasthan Royals in the last game, former England captain Michael Vaughan had expressed disbelief over not seeing Jadeja’s name in the category of Indian players with A+ contract. It appears as if Jadeja too has taken this lightly and turning the heat on.
Faf du Plessis
Faf du Plessis made his IPL debut some nine years ago and he has only risen through the ranks with each passing year. His growth hit a speed breaker last year as the Super Kings missed the old reliable du Plessis who could provide them solidity as well as explosive innings time after time.
He did not start the current season well and was dismissed for zero against the Delhi Capitals. He put his head down and battled to regain his touch in the next game against the Punjab Kings and has never looked back since.
He was back to his best in the game against the Knight Riders and the contest against the RCB showed the glimpses of old du Plessis who could charge down the wicket against pacers to hit them over the top.
He started supremely, hitting a full-pitched delivery from Mohammed Siraj to off side to get the Super Kings going. He waited for opportunities on the next few deliveries and deposited Siraj over long-on to make it look like an easier wicket to bat on than it actually was.
Two boundaries off Kyle Jamieson in the fourth over and the Super Kings were moving along with the scoreboard. Fall of Gaikwad slowed him down a bit as the baton of taking the game to the bowling attack was passed onto Suresh Raina.
He brought his back to back fifty off 40 balls and his comeback into form augurs well for the Super Kings who have made a resounding comeback in this season so far after facing an unceremonious exit last year.
Imran Tahir
Imran Tahir has been rated as one of the most potent wicket-takers in the Chennai Super Kings camp albeit the four-overseas player rule does not allow MS Dhoni to play him more often.
He came back to the playing XI only at the expense of an injured Moeen Ali and boy, didn’t he make it count against the Royal Challengers.
He was introduced right after Ravindra Jadeja in the eighth over against the duo of de Villiers and Maxwell and he made sure the tap was not open from the other end. He yielded only five runs from his first over and the pressure got to Maxwell who got dismissed compensating for a tight over from the leg spinner against Jadeja.
Tahir was at at the batsmen with his box full of tricks and bowled another over for a mere four runs.
The success came in the third over when he defeated Harshal Patel who could not read a quicker one that zipped past his bat while attempting to pull. He also got an outside edge off Jamieson but could not take a wicket.
A sharp catch from Raina in the fourth over handed him the second success of the game. Although Jadeja got the majority of big Royal Challengers wickets, Tahir’s role was instrumental in putting a squeeze on an otherwise flamboyant batting line up.
Flops
Harshal Patel
Harshal Patel has had some special homecoming to the Royal Challengers side after the Delhi Capitals traded him before the auction earlier this year.
He was coming into the game against the Super Kings as the purple cap holder and also established his credentials with three big wickets of Suresh Raina, du Plessis and Rayudu.
However, things started to unravel for the right-armer when Ravindra Jadeja waited in his batting crease and put all his eight and quality against him.
The 20th over he came on to bowl as the last over of his four-over quota turned out to be the joint-most expansive over in the 14 year-long and running history of the IPL.
His cutters were picked off early by Jadeja while the execution of yorkers was wayward, to say the least. He would call himself luck for Jadeja to miss a chance to hit him for six sixes in an over.
Patel must have enjoyed the laurels of getting too many wickets in the death overs when batsmen don’t put a big price tag on their wickets but he will have to digest the failures of batsmen getting the better of him as well o some days, like the one against the Super Kings.
Virat Kohli
Virat Kohli and his team’s dream run in the IPL 2021 led to social media users making fun of the year 2021, and it was always a case of them wondering that how long before the real RCB turn up in IPL.
The day finally came and it all unravelled against the Chennai Super Kings. The Royal Challengers had regained control of the game after a cluster of wickets but Harshal Patel squandered all of that momentum in a span of six balls.
Kohli should have gone to Harshal Patel and calmed the nerves down to help the bowler in the wake of the brutal onslaught but that aspect of his captaincy went missing.
Also, the onus of providing a rollicking start to the Royal Challengers was on his and Padikkal’s shoulder in attempting to chase a big total.
He got going with a freebie from Deepak Chahar but could not go beyond the third over and was flummoxed by Sam Curran.
The Royal Challengers needed their skipper Kohli, who has been a chase master in all his career to stand up tall against the Super Kings. His departure put pressure on the remaining batsmen and failures for both de Villiers and Maxwell meant the men in red and gold were behind the game right from the start of the chase.
The Super Kings would be elated at making it four out of four wins after making a poor start to the tournament this year. Any weather of the sides of IPL would point out many chinks in their armour but the team has found ways to overcome all of that and now stand in a good position to qualify for a coveted playoff position.
On the other hand, the Royal Challengers would like to move on from the contest against the Super Kings as one bad day in the office. However, they would be disappointed for letting the game drift away from their grasp.