IPL 2019, Match 1: CSK vs RCB - 3 reasons why Chennai Super Kings beat Royal Challengers Bangalore in the opening game

When it was announced that Indian Premier League's season 12 will start with a clash between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Chennai Super Kings, there was a lot of buzz and excitement in the air. These are two heavyweight teams of the competition and neither team has any shortage of superstars.

While the defending champions CSK went in favorites, RCB was expected to give them a good run for their money. But the match turned out to be a no contest as the hosts registered an easy win over the visitors.

RCB, who have some of the best batsmen in this format were bundled out for a paltry score of 70. Harbhajan Singh was the destroyer in chief as he picked three early wickets to rock the batting unit of Virat Kohli's men. They never recovered from the early bust and fell well short of 100; which could have been a decent score on the surface. Despite, the pitch being difficult to play on, the target was not a concern for CSK's batting line up.

#3 Poor shot selection by RCB batsman

RCB batsmen didn't seem to read the pitch well as they played some reckless shots on a tough surface. The Chepauk pitch had a lot of help for the spinners and a score of around 120 would have been very competitive. At one stage, RCB were 38/2, but then they lost the wicket of AB de Villiers.

This is where everything started to go wrong for the visitors as none of the batsmen was determined apply themselves on this tough pitch. RCB lost their last eight wickets for just 32 runs as Imran Tahir and Harbhajan Singh ran riot.

Parthiv Patel showed that you could score runs on this pitch if you were ready to apply yourself. The RCB opener was the only batsman to reach double figures while the other batsmen kept falling like nine pins around him. If the rest of the team had applied themselves like Patel, they could have put a respectable score on the board.