Chennai Super Kings five-wicket win over Royal Challengers Bangalore

The contest between the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) panned out to be yet another heart-racing thriller and both teams strained every inch of their muscle to overpower each other. However, it was the might of the Super Kings which emerged triumphant by five wickets from a stage when they looked in all sorts of trouble.

RCB muscle away to competitive score
MS Dhoni won the toss and elected to field first. RCB started well with their openers in Quinton de Kock and Virat Kohli smashing the bowlers to all corners of the ground. However, Kohli was nipped out by Shardul Thakur. The wicket brought AB de Villiers to the crease and he made his intentions clear by peppering the boundaries with sheer ease.

He raced away to 68 runs off 30 balls in which he cleared the ropes as many as eight times. On the other hand, Quinton de Kock looked solid and accomplished a half-century as well. Thereafter the hosts lost quite a few wickets in a hurry and they could only score 205 runs. Mandeep Singh played some gorgeous strokes, which propelled the Challengers’ score beyond the 200-run mark.

During their run chase, Chennai got off to the worst possible start as Shane Watson was dismissed by Pawan Negi in the very first over. Suresh Raina couldn’t survive for long either. Yuzvendra Chahal bowled beautifully and dismissed Sam Billings and Ravindra Jadeja with a couple of vicious leg-breaks. However, Chennai wasn’t ready to drop the gun as MS Dhoni joined Rayudu at the wicket.

The dup carved a magnificent century partnership, which took the sting out of the RCB bowlers. The duo went hammer and tongs and helped CSK chase down another steep target, which didn’t seem likely at the half-way mark when the required rate was greater than a run-a-ball. Dhoni looked at his stupendous best as the bowlers kept disappearing. CSK eventually bagged the game with a couple of balls to spare.

Brief scores:

Royal Challengers Bangalore 205 for 8 in 20 overs (Quinton de Kock 53, AB de Villiers 68, Mandeep Singh 32; Imran Tahir 2 for 35, Dwayne Bravo 2 for 33) lost to Chennai Super Kings 207 for 5 in 19.4 overs (Ambati Rayudu 82, MS Dhoni 70*, Dwayne Bravo 14*; Yuzvendra Chahal 2 for 26, Umesh Yadav 1 for 23) by 5 wickets with 2 balls to spare.