IPL 2018, CSK vs KKR: 5 Talking Points
The MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai was at its vociferous best on Tuesday as Chennai Super Kings played their first game at the Chepauk after 1065 days. They couldn't have asked for a better day out as they got their money worth with a thrilling contest that went all the way down to the wire.
Kolkata Knight Riders looked set to break the hearts of the home crowd for much of the contest, especially after putting on 202 runs on the board thanks to a brutal 36-ball 88 from Andre Russell but a brilliant run-chase from CSK saw the hosts make it two wins out of two in IPL 2018.
Shane Watson and Ambati Rayudu got CSK off to a brilliant start in their run-chase but it was Sam Billings' knock of 56 off just 23 balls that saw the hosts emerge victorious in a match that rained sixes galore.
Here are the 5 major talking points from today's' match.
#5 MS Dhoni's surprising tactics
MS Dhoni is undoubtedly one of the greatest captains in limited-overs cricket but today's match against KKR saw the former Indian skipper make a few wrong calls that arguably forced the match to slip away from CSK's grasps.
It started out well for Chennai as Dhoni's ploy to use the spinners in the powerplay overs saw the dangerous KKR opening pair of Sunil Narine and Chris Lynn fall without causing major damage. The former fell to Harbhajan Singh while the Australian was cleaned up by Ravindra Jadeja.
KKR were intent on going after the bowling and the ploy played into CSK's hands as the visitors were reduced to 89/5 at the half-way mark.
Skipper Dinesh Karthik and Andre Russell steadied the ship for KKR before the latter got stuck into the CSK bowlers but what was surprising was that Dhoni didn't use his spinners more despite the promise shown by the trio of Harbhajan, Jadeja and Imran Tahir.
While the South African leg-spinner completed his quota conceding just 26 runs, the Indian duo conceded just 30 runs from 4 overs picking up two wickets. It's no secret that Russell is not comfortable with the spinners and Dhoni should have put his experienced spin duo to much better use on the day.
Dhoni's dependency on the fast bowlers was made to look worse as they kept bowling full-length deliveries at Russell when short-pitched stuff should have been the way to go as RCB showed in their match against KKR on Sunday.
Dhoni also struggled with the bat, scoring 25 off 28 balls and surely has his teammates to thank for saving the day.