Ruturaj Gaikwad’s blistering 75-run knock and a fifty from Faf du Plessis helped Chennai Super Kings (CSK) to defeat SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) by seven-wicket here at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Wednesday.
With this win, CSK moved at the top of the table with its fifth consecutive wins. Chasing 172, Gaikwad and Du Plessis gave a flying start to CSK. The openers showed their intentions from the beginning of the run-chase.
Both the openers started taking on SRH bowlers and smashed them all around the park. The duo added 54 runs in the Powerplay overs. The openers continued the carnage and went on to take the side to the three-figure mark in the 11th over.
Meanwhile, Du Plessis completed his fifty off 32 balls. In the 12th over, Gaikwad also smashed his fifth IPL half-century. The 129-run opening partnership was put to an end by Rashid Khan in the 13th over as he dismissed bowled out Gaikwad after scoring 75 off 44. His knock was studded with 12 fours.
Rashid in his last over gave a double blow to CSK as he picked Du Plessis (56) and Moeen Ali (15) on successive balls. Ravindra Jadeja and Suresh Raina remained unbeaten on seven and 17 runs respectively as CSK won the game with nine balls to spare.
For SRH, Rashid returned with the figures of 3-36 in his four overs.
Earlier, a late onslaught from Kane Williamson and fifties from Manish Pandey and skipper David Warner guided SRH to 171/3 in their allotted 20 overs.
Opting to bat first, openers failed to give the side the desired start as Jonny Bairstow (7) was picked by pacer Sam Curran in the fourth over.
Manish Pandey, brought in the playing XI, joined Warner in the middle. The duo after setting their eyes on the ball played furiously and increased the run-rate as they smashed boundaries at regular intervals.
Pandey and Warner knitted a 106-run partnership off 87 balls. Meanwhile, Pandey completed his half-century in 35 balls. Warner also completed his fifty in the 16th over.
Warner smashed his 50th fifty and 200 sixes in the IPL. He also completed 10,000 runs in T20 cricket.
In the 18th over, Lungi Ngidi bagged both Warner (57) and Pandey (61) and left the side reeling at 134/3.
Williamson and Kedar Jadhav took the charge of moving the scoreboard. Williamson’s hitting enables SRH to accumulated 20 runs from Shardul Thakur’s 19th over. In the last over, the duo added 13 runs and took the total to 171/3 in 20 overs.
Williamson’s 26-run knock was studded with a six and four 4s while Jadhav scored 12 off four balls.
For CSK, Ngidi bagged two scalps while Chahar took one wicket.
Brief Scores: SRH 171/3 in 20 overs (Manish Pandey 61, David Warner 57, Kane Williamson 26*; Ngidi 2-35); CSK 173/3 in 18.3 overs (Ruturaj Gaikwad 75, Faf du Plessis 56; Rashid Khan 3-36).
