Chennai get past powerless Bangalore

Cricket365
April 25, 2015

The Chennai Super Kings may not have scored as many runs as they could have, losing many late wickets, but they had enough on the board to beat Gayle-less Royal Challengers Bangalore by 27 runs on Wednesday.

Gayle was dropped for Mitchell Starc as Rilee Rossouw opened the batting, and as it turned out, RCB did not have the fire power to chase the 182 required. Ashish Nehra took four wickets to see RCB end on 154 for eight.

Bangalore won the toss and opted to field, putting their faith in the middle order of AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli to chase any score, and in Starc to keep the runs down. It seemed a good plan, as Yuzverndra Chahal removed Brendon McCullum for four.

Dwayne Smith and Suresh Raina pulled things back for CSK though, as they pushed the score to 70 in the eighth over. SMith was out then, caught behind for 39, leaving Raina to advance with MS Dhoni alongside him.

Raina made 62 before departing to Chahal as well, having used up just 32 balls. Dhoni followed soon afterwards for 13, and suddenly the 200-plus score seemed far away. Faf du Plessis' cameo at the end, 33 not out off 18 balls, ensured the defendable score.

RCB would have been confident of chasing the score given how good the batting deck was, but the top and middle order all failed to get going. Kohli was the only batsman to make more than 22, and he scored 51.

The highlight of the chase was a catch taken by Du Plessis to remove Manvinder Bisla. The Proteas man ran backwards as the ball sailed over his head, and dived backwards to take the catch one-handed, landing heavily on his shoulder.