IPL 2020: 3 mistakes committed by CSK against RR

Chennai Super Kings’ (CSK) defeat against Rajasthan Royals (RR) has left a lot of unanswered questions for the fans. Rajasthan were playing without their two important match winners, Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes, yet they dominated the three-time champions at Sharjah. Sanju Samson, the protagonist of RR’s batting, scored sixes at will and produced one of the most memorable innings of IPL 2020.

Shane Watson and Faf du Plessis tried their best to take the yellow army over the line but the target of 217 was way out of the reach for CSK. Chennai was playing without their last game’s hero, Ambati Rayudu and the batting order looked quite vulnerable. Still, there were few things that Chennai could have done to avoid a defeat in their second excursion of IPL 2020.

Here are the 3 mistakes CSK committed which turned out to be the reason for their defeat against RR:

1. Giving away momentum with weak death bowling:

Sanju Samson and Steve Smith played magnificent knocks and their exceptional partnership took RR to 119 runs in 10 overs. However, CSK pulled the things back in control by taking continuous wickets. But when it looked like RR will fall short of a 200+ total, Chennai leaked a lot of runs in death overs.

In the last 2 overs, their bowlers leaked 39 runs and that became a major reason for their batsmen to fell short of the massive target. CSK lack a proper death bowler in their line-up and playing 2 overseas pacers didn’t help their cause.

2. MS Dhoni coming in at no. 7

While chasing the massive total of 217, CSK started well. Shane Watson and Murali Vijay played quite well in the beginning but as soon as the wickets started falling, their batsmen looked anxious. In Suresh Raina and Ambati Rayudu’s absence, they needed an experienced batsman in the middle and who could have been a better option than MS Dhoni, their skipper and arguably the best finisher ever.

However, Dhoni didn’t come to bat for the major part of the innings. When the Ranchi stalwart walked in, things were almost impossible to pull back. CSK needed 103 to win off 38 balls and Du Plessis tried his best to pull off an impossible task but the team lost the game by 16 runs. If the captain would have walked in at no. 4 or no. 5, things could have turned out differently.

3. Leaving too many in the last five overs

CSK’s run rate looked quite above par in the powerplays but their scoring rate reduced massively post that. Though one of the reasons was the continuous fall of wickets but as the target was well above 200, they left too many for the death overs. In the last five overs, they needed 86 runs to win and the task was extremely difficult. If they would have played more aggressive shots in the middle overs, death overs hitting could have been enough for their victory.