Mumbai: Chennai Super Kings (CSK) spinners Ravindra Jadeja (2/28) and Moeen Ali (3/7) weaved a web around Rajasthan Royals (RR) batsmen to help their team win their Indian Premier League (IPL) match by 45 runs at the Wankhede Stadium on Monday.Jadeja also took four catches to pin the Jaipur franchise down.
RR, facing an uphill task after the early dismissal of their skipper Sanju Samson, still were in the hunt at 87/2 in 11 overs, needing 102 more runs to overhaul CSK’s 188/9.
Although the run rate was steep, at over 11 an over but with Jos Buttler batting well at 49 and with South African big-hitters David Miller and Chris Morris to come, a win looked possible.
Chennai Super Kings (CSK) skipper MS Dhoni’s experience in cricket helped him to predict correctly the timing of the turn on the pitch. But his opposite number in Rajasthan Royals (RR), also a fellow wicket-keeper, was shocked by the turn during their Indian Premier League (IPL) match here at the Wankhede Stadium.
Commentator and former India batsman Rohan Gavaskar tweeted during the innings, When butler hit jadeja for a six and then ball was replaced, you could hear dhoni on the stump mic saying that the ball will turn because it’s dry … that’s exactly what happened !! #ipl2021 #csk.
Jadeja had, up until then, was being easily manoeuvred around. But the change of ball brought in turn for him.
RR skipper Samson was, however, quite shocked by it.
We never expected that [turn], the dew didn’t come and the ball was still turning, so it was a bit shocking to see, said Samson while speaking at the post-match presentation.
Samson blamed the loss of wickets in the middle to spinners for the loss that RR suffered.
I thought it was a good score to chase down but we lost too many wickets in the middle overs. Our bowlers bowled really well, they batted too deep. We gave them 10-15 runs extra, added Samson.
Dhoni, meanwhile, said, ‘It was stopping a bit for spinners. There was slightly less dew than the usual.’