Views of a Chennai Super Fan - Another Day in the life of Jadeja

Match: Chennai Super Kings vs Royal Challengers Bangalore in Chennai

Result: CSK win by four wickets

Narrative:

MS Dhoni won the toss, chose to field first and was almost immediately vindicated as Chris Gayle perished in the second over. If the CSK skipper thought that was half the battle won, Kohli and de Villiers showed there is more to RCB than the muscular West Indian. Kohli reclaimed the Orange Cap with another effective knock, but it was de Villiers’ manic unbeaten 64 which pushed the Royal Challengers to 165 – a total that looked just about par. In reply, the men in yellow got to a poor start losing both their openers quickly to stumble to 10/2 in 4 overs. After that, Badrinath and Raina consolidated for a while before Dhoni gave the thrust in the latter part of the innings; but when Dhoni departed in the 18^th over, the Super Kings were still looking at a stiff 29 runs from 11 deliveries to win. The equation soon changed to 16 needed from the final over, when RP Singh was given the ball. A fortuitous edge and a mighty swing over long on later, Jadeja had reduced it to 6 needed from 4 balls. In the end, with 2 runs needed off one ball, RP Singh induced an upper cut from Jadeja which nestled in third man’s hands, only for the umpire to signal a no-ball. Impossibly, CSK performed a heist against RCB. Again.

Analysis:

Phew. What a game. In the end, all the ‘Sir’ jokes about Jadeja came true as he stole an incredible win for the men in yellow, with a lot of help from the hapless RP Singh. This was a game that could have gone either way, but some timely hits and a lot of luck saw CSK through. CSK seemed to have got the strangle hold on RCB with the dismissal of Gayle, but when two world-class batsmen like Kohli and de Villiers get going like they did, there is nothing much the opposition can do. In fact, given the way de Villiers was blitzing towards the end, RCB will feel like they landed at least 15 runs short.

The waiting game worked well for Hussey-Vijay against Kings XI, but it came a cropper against RCB and put a lot of pressure on the middle order. Luckily, CSK have just the right men for the situation in Raina and Badri. The pair kept the runs ticking and, most importantly, didn’t lose their wickets too early. After that it was all Dhoni and Jadeja. When Dhoni got out, it looked for a while that the game was heading for a finish similar to the one against the Mumbai Indians. So, it was good to see Jadeja and Bravo strike timely hits to keep the team in the contest. For CSK to be consistently good, they will need more performances like this from the all-rounders who follow the captain.

What can be said about the RP Singh no-ball? He had a really poor game; he had dropped a sitter and bowled a big no-ball earlier in the game as well. While there were a lot of murmurs about ‘fixing’ on the social media, I would think it was just a case of an experienced bowler having an off day.

Preview of next game:

In two days, the Super Kings are taking on the Pune Warriors who are not having the greatest of seasons. While they seemed to have turned a corner in the game against the Rajasthan Royals, their performance against the Mumbai Indians must have certainly dented their confidence. They will also miss their regular captain Angelo Mathews as this game is being held in Chennai, and it will be interesting to see who the stand-in skipper will be. Either way, the Super Kings will do well not to take them lightly. It is important to grab these crucial wins against the lesser teams; as the game against RCB showed, the battle between the top tier teams can swing any way, any time.

Tweets of the game:

It doesn’t matter if you have a purple cap or an Orange cap. To lift the IPL trophy, you need the Yellow cap#CSK

— Shashank Thala (@Chingakutty) April 14, 2013

2 to win off 1. Jadeja finishes with a ball to spare. If this doesn’t fit in the Rajnikanth/Norris template, I dunno what will!

— Harish (@_curses) April 13, 2013