Picture : Twitter / ANI
Chennai Super Kings played spoilsport and knocked out Kings XI Punjab by an emphatic 9 wickets to send them out of the play-offs in Abu Dhabi.
Earlier Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the toss and decided to bowl first. His bowlers responded well. CSK bowlers bowled to a plan and did not allow the Kings XI Punjab batsmen to break free and restricted to a decent total . Skipp[er K L Rahul ( 29), Mayank Agarwal ( 26), Chris Gayle ( 12) , Nicholas Pooran (2) , Madeep Singh ( 14), James Neesham ( 2), Chris Jordan ( 4). Only Deepak Hooda’s unbeaten 62 off 30 balls with 3 fours and four sixes was the only bright spot in the Kings innings. The Kings finished at 153/ 6 in their twenty overs
For CSK , South African Lungi Ngidi was impressive with 3/39 ( 4 overs), Imran Tahir 1/24 ( 4 overs) the big wicket of Universe Boss CHris Gayle, Shardul Thakur 1/27 ( 4 overs), Ravindra Jadeja 1/17 ( 3 overs) were the wicket- takers
In reply CSK got off to a confident start. with the openers doing a fine job putting on 82 for the first wicket. Faf Du Plessis scored ( 48). Ambati Rayudu scored 30 off 30 balls and remained unbeaten . But the star once again with his impressive third IPL fifty was Ruturaj Gaikwad who scored an unbeaten 62 off 49 balls with 6 fours and one six as CSK romped home by nine wickets in18.5 overs reaching 154/ 1.
For the Kings , James Neesham 0/26 ( 3 overs) , Mohammed Shami 0/29 ( 4 overs), Chris Jordan 1/31 (3 overs), Ravi Bishnoi 0/ 39 (4 overs), Murugan Ashwin 0/17 ( 4 overs)
