Picture : Twitter / ANI
Out of the tournament and playing for pride Chennai Super Kings dented the play-offs hopes of inconsistent Kolkata Knight Riders with a thrilling last ball win in Dubai . This after CSK skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the toss and elected to field first.
KKR openers Shubman Gill and Nitish Rana put on a fine start. KKR’s best in this year’s tournament of 53. Gill scored ( 26). Nitish Rana played steller innings of 87 off 61 balls with 10 fours and four sixes. But aparat from him there was not much support. Sunil Narine ( 7), Rinku Singh ( 11), skipper Eoin Morgan (15). Dinesh Karthik hit some useful blows 21 off 10 balls. As KKR finished at a 172 /5 in their twenty overs. One felt they were atleast 15-20 runs short . The middle order batsmen could not fire and this hurt them towards the end.
CSK bowlers did well to check the KKR batsmen, South African pacer Lungi Ngidi took 2/34 ( 4 overs), Mitchell Santner 1/30 ( 3 overs), Ravindra Jadeja 1/20 ( 3 overs), Karn Sharma 1/35 (4 overs), Sam Curran 0/21 ( 3 overs) , Deepak Chahar 0/31 ( 3 overs)
In reply CSK lost Shane Watson ( 14) early but in-form Rituraj Gaikwad, scoring his second consecutive fifty and Ambati Rayudu put them back in the back with a fine 68 run stand . Gaikwad was brilliant for his 72 off 53 balls with 6 fours and two sixes. Rayudu threw his wicket away for a well made 38 off 20 balls. Mahendra Singh Dhoni was bowled by a beauty from Varun Chakravarthy for ( 1). Sam Curran was not out on 13. Ravindra Jadeja made the most of the Lockie Ferguson’s 19th over taking 23 runs. And it swung the game CSK way. In the last over bowled by Kamlesh Nagarkoti and needing 10 runs , Jadeja smashed two back-to-back sixes. One in the last ball where one run was needed off one ball to clinch a thrilling win. The Nagarkoti over read : 0,2,1,0,6,6. Jadeja was unbeaten on 31 off 11 balls with two fours and three sixes. CSK finishing at 178 / 4 in 20 overs.
A nail-biting finish. @imjadeja finishes off in style ??#CSK win by 6 wickets.#Dream11IPL pic.twitter.com/eaoeT1cU4k
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) October 29, 2020
For KKR it was so near yet so far. now their play -offs hopes is in trouble while the CSK win ensured Mumbai Indians have now reached the play-offs. The KKR bowling once again was a let down. Pat Cummins 2/31 ( 4 overs), Kamlesh Nagarkoti 0/34 ( 3 overs), Sunil Narine with new action has looked ordinary 0/ 23 ( 4 overs), Lockie Ferguson was the most expensive and his 19th over cost KKR the match 0/54 ( 4 overs), Varun Chakravarthy 2/20 ( 4 overs) Nitish Rana 0/16 (1 over)
#MumbaiIndians qualifies for the playoffs after Match 49 of #Dream11IPL pic.twitter.com/50w5mOZA7y
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) October 29, 2020
The points table put the Mumbai Indians on top and KKR will have to wait
