In a close IPL match on Wednesday at Chidambaram Stadium, the unheralded Rajasthan Royals seamer Sandeep Sharma hit a couple of perfect block-hole deliveries to help Rajasthan Royals defeated Chennai Super Kings by three runs.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni gave a brief look at bygone times of exciting completions. On the other hand, Sandeep Sharma, a seamer for the unheralded Rajasthan Royals, hit a couple of perfect block-hole deliveries.
With 21 balls remaining in the final over, Dhoni (32 off 17 balls) and Ravindra Jadeja (25 off 15 balls), both of whom have played in numerous tantalizing finishes, were on track to achieve their goal of 176.
Dhoni did not perform as well as he would have liked to in his spiritual home in front of more than 30,000 cheering fans in his 200th game for CSK. As a result, the final score for CSK was 172 for 6.
Sandeep, a Punjab seamer who had only played two or three games for India eight years ago, bowled a few wides and looked like he was losing his cool. Dhoni then whipped him over square leg and midwicket for a few sixes.
The medium pacer scored two runs with a wide yorker from Jadeja and a perfect block-hole shot from Dhoni. From the last two deliveries, it required six.
Devon Conway’s 50 off 38 balls on a tacky surface, despite Ravichandran Ashwin’s (2/25 in 4 overs) and YUzvendra Chahal’s (2/27 in 4 overs) exceptional bowling, did not provide momentum.
Prior to this, Jos Buttler had a method that wasn’t exactly destructive, but he still reached the eighteenth fifty years of his IPL career, helping Rajasthan Royals post a respectable 175 for 8 after being put into bat first.
On a surface that helped the spinners, Ravindra Jadeja (2/21 in 4 overs) was still menacing, even as Buttler hit three huge sixes in his 36-ball-52.
He and Devdutt Padikkal, who had struggled against Punjab Kings but was back to his best after his struggles, shared a good 77-run partnership for the second wicket (38 runs off 26 balls).
Towards the end, Shimron Hetmyer (30 off 18 balls) was ever noteworthy as a finisher while Tushar Deshpande (2/37) gave just eight runs in the twentieth over.
The CSK bowlers, particularly Jadeja figured it out. How to fix back the Royals players after the energetic beginning with the 50 coming in the sixth over.
Between overs 8 and 13, the Royals had trouble. Losing Padikkal and captain Sanju Samson (0) to Jadeja, who took two wickets in three balls.
Samson was hit by a delivery that was bowled at a high arm speed and had enough bounce and turns to make the batter play the wrong line.
Ashwin hit two sixes off the Royals’ debut left-arm pacer Akash Singh. After the Royals batsmen had not scored a boundary for a little over six overs. Ashwin took 30 balls, 22 balls, 1×4, and 2×6.
He skyed one-off Akash in the deep as he fell while attempting to accelerate. After captain MS Dhoni won the throw and picked to bowl.
Deshpande struck an early blow for the host group. Excusing the hazardous Yashasvi Jaiswal (10, 8 balls, 2×4), having him gotten by Shivam Dube.
Buttler and Padikkal (38, 26 balls, 5×4) add 77 runs in 41 conveyances before the last option tumbled to Ravindra Jadeja, trapped in the profound by Devon Conway. After Jaiswal’s early dismissal, the partnership established the Royals.
In the presence of his wife Chitra Srinivasan and former TNCA president Rupa Gurunath, former BCCI president N Srinivasan presented Dhoni with a certificate of appreciation prior to the match for leading CSK for the 200th time in the Indian Premier League.