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Chennai Super Kings 176 for 4 (Ravindra 37, Dube 34*, Green 2-27) beat Royal Challengers Bengaluru 173 for 6 (Rawat 48, Karthik 38*, du Plessis 35, Mustafizur 4-29) by six wickets
Chennai Super Kings, under a brand-new captain, enjoyed a winning start to their defence of the IPL title in front of a raucous Chepauk crowd on Friday night. Mustafizur Rahman, who was among four debutants for CSK, took out four of Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s top five in the space of ten balls to set up an eighth successive defeat for RCB in Chennai.
Rachin Ravindra, who was playing his first IPL game, also played his part in the victory, with 37 off 15 balls at a strike rate of 246.66 on a pitch that slowed down later in the night. In his first game as CSK captain, Ruturaj Gaikwad started with a first-ball four, but RCB’s Impact Player Yash Dayal cut his innings short on 15 in CSK’s chase of 174.
Cameron Green and Alzarri Joseph then briefly silenced the Chepauk crowd with their contrasting styles. While Green bowled slower cutters into the pitch, Joseph operated at high speeds and generated steep bounce, taking the pitch out of the equation.
Shivam Dube, who was working his way back from injury, replaced Mustafizur as an Impact Player for CSK and laboured to 15 off 16 balls. But he then turned up the tempo to usher CSK home with an unbeaten 34 off 28 balls along with Ravindra Jadeja, who scored an unbeaten 25 off 17. MS Dhoni didn’t get to bat in the chase, but perhaps this is what he had hoped for when he handed over the keys of the CSK kingdom to Gaikwad.
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