Steve Smith’s Rajasthan Royals were up against Dhoni’s Chennai Super Kings in the first of many games to played at Sharjah. CSK, who were coming off a win against Mumbai in the opening match, won the toss and got Rajasthan to bat first. This decision was to prove costly as the Rajasthan batsmen proved how good a batting track it was.
Skipper Steve Smith opened the innings (much to the surprise of people watching). With him was the wonder boy of this year’s U-19 World Cup – Yashasvi Jaiswal. But he went early as he top edged a bouncer off Deepak Chahar and made his way back to the pavilion. In came Sanju Samson, who has been backed by RR for 7 years and counting. And the way he started his innings proved why he is so highly rated. He went berserk against the CSK bowlers, and cleared the ropes on every single occassion.
Class personified : Sanju Samson hits one over covers for six.
Be it Chahar, Curran or Jadeja, Samson looked unbelievable against all of them. Piyush Chawla bowled the 8th over and went for 28 runs. Samson went from being 37 off 16 to 52 off 21, bringing up the fastest 50 of the season. Chawla looked clueless, as those crisp clean hits from the RR no.3 vanished into the night sky. The onslaught continued as even Smith joined the party and scored at a SR of close to 150.
Samson finally fell to a Ngidi bouncer, but not before putting on 74 off 32 deliveries, an innings that consisted of 9 sixes and a solitary four. The score was 131-2 after just 11 overs. The RR skipper brought up his fifty soon after, but in an attempt ran David Miller out for naught – which also happened to be a diamond duck. From then on wickets tumbled one after the other. After 19, RR were 186/7, and it looked as though CSK had pulled things back and stopped Rajasthan from reaching a huge total.
But something extraordinary happened in the last over. Jofra Archer, who is known for his big hits, went hard at Lungi Ngidi. His cameo of 27 off 8 nuts which included 4 humongous sixes, 3 singles, 2 no balls, and a wide, took Rajasthan to 216/7. 30 coming off the last over.
On fire : Jofra Archer smoked 4 massive sixes in the final over of the innings.
In reply, CSK’s chase started rather ordinarily. They were always behind the 8 ball and didn’t look like they would catch up. Vijay and Watson started slowly. After their dismissals, Sam Curran looked to put the foot on the pedal a little but to no avail. He was soon stumped off Rahul Tewatia – becoming his 1st scalp of the game. Leggie Tewatia went on to take another 2 wickets, and bowled beautifully in the middle overs. His deliveries had guile, dip and turn as he ran through the Chennai middle order.
Rahul Tewatia celebrates in trademark fashion after dismissing Shane Watson.
The lone man fighting was Faf du Plessis, who got his 2nd consecutive half century of the season. After being run-a-ball, he accelerated and hit 7 sixes in his innings of 72. But he too became Tewatia’s victim and fell in trying to get to the total. MS Dhoni came in at 7 to everyone’s surprise and nudged the ball around. This didn’t help as the asking rate kept climbing. It was only in the last over of the game that Dhoni tonked the ball around. 3 huge sixes – out of which one went sailing across the roof. But it was much too late as CSK fell 16 runs short of the target.
Sanju Samson was adjudged Man of the Match as RR recorded their first win of the season and they look like a team to beat in the games going forward. Their fearless approach with the bat saw a record being made – most sixes in an IPL match (34). Concerns for CSK will be their death bowling and the starts that their openers give them. Up next, we have MI taking on KKR in Abu Dhabi – which promises to be a night to watch out for.
-Vibhor Dubey
Smiles all around as RR walk back after registering their first win this year’s IPL.
The Average Cricketer 