IPL 2019: Match 18, CSK vs KXIP, Review – MS Dhoni's captaincy and bowlers help the home team win their fourth game

For the first time this year, the CSK bowlers did so well under pressure.

Published - 06 Apr 2019, 19:48 IST | Updated - 06 Apr 2019, 19:48 IST

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In his first game against the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in Chennai, Ravichandran Ashwin ended up being on the losing side. The match was quite a humdinger with the fortunes swinging between both the sides right till the end. But it was the home team who held onto their nerves in the toughest of situations and comfortably got over the line. MS Dhoni was instrumental in helping the home team win the match.

Towards the end, when batting seemed to be extremely difficult against the relatively older ball, he played brilliantly. With some assistance from Faf du Plessis, the hosts put up a good first innings total. This was followed by some exceptional bowling by the CSK bowlers as they claimed the top spot on the points table yet again.

Faf du Plessis scores a fifty in his first IPL game this year

The Chennai Super Kings won the toss at Chepauk and elected to bat first. With DJ Bravo unavailable, there were quite a few changes that the CSK team had to make. Faf du Plessis made his way into the eleven to strengthen the batting. He opened the innings with Shane Watson. The Australian cricketer yet again got off to a good start but threw his wicket away. Watson scored 26 off 24 balls before Ravichandran Ashwin got the better of him.

However, his partner at the other end batted beautifully. He scored 54 off 38 balls right in his first game of this season. It was Ashwin only who dismissed the Proteas skipper and then dismissed Suresh Raina as well of the next ball. CSK weren’t at the best of positions after 15 overs.

They scored 108 runs and were heading somewhere towards the 140 or 150-run mark. But MS Dhoni and Ambati Rayudu finished off things well for the home team. While the skipper was unbeaten on 37 off 23 balls, Rayudu scored 21 off 15. CSK finished with 160/3 after 20 overs which was a decent total.

The CSK bowlers perform brilliantly under pressure

In the chase, the Kings XI Punjab were hit by two massive blows early on. Harbhajan Singh began with a double-wicket maiden and dismissed both Chris Gayle and Mayank Agarwal. However, after these two fell, KL Rahul and Sarfaraz Khan worked out a good partnership and got things back on track for the Punjab team. The duo made the most of the long boundaries and rotated the strike really well.

Both of them got to their fifties and got the big shots out whenever required. KL Rahul was lucky to a certain extent as MS Dhoni’s brilliance almost ran him out. However, the bails did not fall on to the ground despite lighting up. The duo looked good but failed to get the team over the line. 39 runs were needed off the last two overs. Deepak Chahar bowled two consecutive no-balls under pressure and helped the visitors sense a chance. But he recovered well and Scott Kuggeleijn did a fabulous job to help CSK win the game by 22 runs.