IPL 2018: 5 of the best knocks by CSK
Chennai Super Kings suffered just their second loss of the 2018 IPL season last night, losing comprehensively by eight wickets to Mumbai Indians.
A score of 169 was always going to be an easy target, especially for a Mumbai side brimming with batting talent right up to No.8.
But MI made it unnecessarily tight, carrying it late until a late Rohit Sharma onslaught killed it off in the penultimate over.
CSK are still sitting pretty at the top of the table with a slightly superior run-rate over Sunrisers Hyderabad.
They find themselves in this relatively easy position because of their stellar batting performances in previous games. Someone or the other always stepped up in every game to ensure CSK got over the line eventually.
Here we take a look at five of their best knocks so far:
#5 MS Dhoni- 70*(34) vs RCB
The genius of this man will never cease to amaze us. He follows methods best known to him and carries out one successful chase after another as if it is the easiest thing in the world.
RCB had posted a stiff score of 205 with valuable contributions from AB de Villiers and Quinton de Kock. CSK’s bowling was taken to the cleaners by the duo even after the powerplay had ended. CSK did apply the brakes slightly but late hitting by Mandeep Singh and Washington Sundar took RCB past 200.
In reply, CSK started poorly, losing Watson early and Raina, Billings and Jadeja perished quickly after with CSK reeling at 74-4. In walked MS Dhoni to join the in-form Rayudu. The duo stitched a wonderful partnership to take CSK closer to the target.
Rayudu was dismissed before the winning runs were hit but Bravo came in and hit a couple of lusty blows.
At a time when our blood pressure was rising with every passing ball, MSD readjusted his gloves and launched Negi and Anderson into the stands regularly to take CSK to a famous victory.