IPL 2019: CSK vs RCB: 3 key facts from the game

The first match of the 2019 IPL season has just come and gone. While it wasn't a bad match by any standards, it left a lot to be desired. There is no denying that Chennai Super Kings deserved their victory but a little fight from their opponents would have been a lot more fun to see rather than the clean sweep that was this match.

A bare minimum target of 70 presented by Royal Challengers Bangalore wasn't much of a challenge for MS Dhoni's CSK. In the aftermath of the match, let us take a look at things that stood out whether for positive or negative reasons.

#3 The pitch

The pitch wasn't conducive to high scores

It was apparent since the very beginning that this was not a T20 friendly pitch. Even the winning captain, MS. Dhoni was critical of the pitch at Chepauk.

"I wasn't sure about the wicket. We played a practice match on this wicket and it was a high scoring match, but usually, in practice matches, we score 30 runs more than a normal match. But we were really surprised by how slow the wicket was. It reminded me of a Champions League wicket in 2011 after we won the IPL.

"The wicket definitely needs to be much better, even with dew it was spinning big. 80, 90, 100 is really low-scoring and if you have genuine spinners in your lineup you can create a lot of trouble. We have communicated it really well to the players as to when they'll feature in and in which conditions. Harbhajan's is one slot and we'll shuffle it around. He would never mind bowling on such wickets.

"We need to score runs as well, ours is a batting attack where batsmen like to play their shots and you can't control the toss which means that we might have to bowl first in matches as well. Other teams have good spinners as well and this isn't the pitch we are looking forward to,"

The RCB batsmen could not get anything started and constantly fell victim to CSK's spin attack.