IPL 2020, Match 37: Chennai Super Kings v Rajasthan Royals – RR coast to 7-wicket victory, CSK sink to the bottom of points table

Steve Smith and Jos Buttler guided the Rajasthan Royals (RR) to a comfortable 7-wicket win over the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the IPL today after they crawled to a total of 125 in their 20 overs due to a complete lack of intent to attack during the latter stages of their innings.

Opting to bat first, CSK lost two of their key batsmen, Faf du Plessis and Shane Watson within the first four overs, both of them falling to loose shots. As a result, Sam Curran had to play the role of anchor instead of his usual pinch-hitting job. As a result, despite two leg-spinners operating for RR, Curran refrained from going for any big shots. That was until the 2nd ball of the 9th over, when Curran skipped out to a flatter delivery from Shreyas Gopal and tried to clear long-on, but holed out to Buttler instead.

Ambati Rayudu fell next over, trying to play a sweep shot but rather tamely ending up top-edging a ball that bounced a little more, and Samson, wearing the big gloves for the second consecutive game for RR, easily completed the catch. MS Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja, coming ahead of Kedar Jadhav today, were unable to up the ante, with the middle-stages of the second half of the innings going without a single boundary.

ALSO READ: IPL 2020: CSK vs RR Game Plan 2 – Rajasthan to gamble with three leg-spinners?

Dhoni was run out in the 18th over after belatedly deciding on a second run upon sighting a fumble from Jofra Archer. CSK, with the help of a couple of fours from Jadeja in the penultimate over, finished on 125. Funnily enough, the Sam Curran six early on off Stokes was the only one of the innings.

RR looked to finish the chase off in a jiffy, which resulted in their top order collapsing, again. Ben Stokes chopped on off Deepak Chahar, Robin Uthappa fell trying playing a daft scoop shot to Hazlewood next over, and 7 balls later, Samson, whose performance since the opening matches has been nothing short of disappointing, added a duck to his tally of low scores by edging behind to Dhoni down the leg side.

Steven Smith and Jos Buttler then went on with the rebuild. Considering that they had only a few runs to chase down, the duo curbed their attacking nature and dealt in singles, with Buttler finding the ropes every now and then. Buttler reached a half-century in the 15th over with a boundary off Piyush Chawla and celebrated with a couple of more boundaries in the same over. Chawla then conceded another boundary and the third six of the match, and RR were home next over, courtesy a glance to mid-wicket for a single by Smith.

Jos Buttler’s unbeaten 70 guided his side to an important victory today

CSK v RR: Tactics and Talking Points

CSK batsmen’s over-aggressive approach in the powerplay left Sam Curran playing the role of anchor

With Sam Curran being promoted up the order, one would have expected him to go after the bowling from ball one. Instead, we saw him play out 4 dot balls in the first over from Archer. It was his opening partner, Faf du Plessis, who was trying to play the shots. He did get a boundary in his brief innings of 10, which looked ungainly in nature.

His attacking approach ended up being his downfall, as he tried to smash a short ball from Archer that stuck on the surface, but could only manage to hit it towards short cover, where Jos Buttler, an outfielder today as well, took an excellent catch. If Faf’s innings didn’t look unusual enough, Watson, in his 3 ball stay, smashed a short ball to the mid-wicket fence, managed an under-edge trying to go hard on the drive which raced away to the fence as well, and then hit one straight to the hands of Rahul Tewatia at mid-wicket, all off Kartik Tyagi.

The dismissals of CSK’s regular opening duo meant that Curran had to bat for as long as he could, something that didn’t seem to sit with him very well. He tried his best to be resilient but was unable to control his temptation of going big in the 9th over, holing out to Buttler at long-off.

ALSO READ: IPL 2020: CSK vs RR Game Plan 1 – Imran Tahir or Josh Hazlewood or Lungi Ngidi?

CSK shying away from using their spinners to get the 4th breakthrough

To be honest, once RR lost their top 3 batsmen, CSK’s approach seemed alike to a team that has nothing more to lose. The fast bowling opening pair of Deepak Chahar and Josh Hazlewood, both of whom provided the breakthroughs for CSK, were bowled out within the first 10 overs itself. In fact, before the introduction of leg-spinner Piyush Chawla, Shardul Thakur and Sam Curran were given a total of 3 overs to bowl.

While the pitch looked like it was towards the slower side despite having some grass, and given how both the RR leg-spinners, Shreyas Gopal and Rahul Tewatia, who bowled his 4 overs despite a strain to his ankle, were successful in keeping the runs down to a bare minimum despite bowling to big-hitters for the best part of their spells, this tactic from CSK seemed a tad puzzling. The fast bowlers did provide the initial breakthroughs, but Jadeja and Chawla, who could have proved a point on a surface like this despite being unsuccessful this year, were deprived of spells in their usual stage of the innings.

RR top-order batsmen needlessly going after the bowling straightaway despite chasing only 126

KKR’s Shubman Gill might have been a disappointment in terms of accelerating after settling in, but one good innings he played this year was against KKR earlier in the tournament. KKR, too had a small target to chase, but Gill, showing a hint of aggression and punishing the bad balls in the powerplay, quietly settled in and saw his team home, batting till the very end. Today was the perfect opportunity for someone like a Sanju Samson, who has had a very lean patch of late, to play a cautious innings, get some runs under his belt and see his team through, something that could have given him a lot more confidence going ahead.

Instead, we saw all three RR top-order batsman throw their wickets away within the first six. Thankfully, Jos Buttler, who has shown his other, resilient side to his game across formats throughout the last 4 months, and Steven Smith, who has returned among the runs lately, steadied the ship and saw their team through without much fuss.