Picture : Twitter / IPL
2018 IPL champions Chennai Super Kings have begun their title defence in style. They outplayed listless Royal Challengers Bangalore in the opening match at Chennai by 7 wickets. The one- sided match dashed the buzz of blockbuster opening match .
It was the men in yellow all the way . Mahendra Singh Dhoni , CSK skipper won an important toss on slow spinning wicket and put RCB into bat in front of the packed crowd at Chennai .
And the master that he is MSD superbly used the vast experience of Harbhajan Singh. And Bhajji delivered by rolling back years to bag top wickets . He bowled four fine overs for mere 20 runs and took 3 wickets to rattle RCB. Among his victims were RCB skipper Virat Kohli ( 6). RCB did not recover after the early loos of their superstar and skipper. And the team collapsed like a pack of cards.
That Parthiv Patel ( 29) was the top scorer for the RCB showed how much the team struggled on this pitch. AB De Villiers failed as well scoring ( 9) added the to their misery. It was forgettable night as they were bundled out for 70 in 17.1 overs.
CSK spinners apart from Bhajji bowled superbly. South African spinner, Imran Tahir in fine form with the national team, continued where he left off . He bagged 3/ 9 in his four overs. Ravindra Jadeja too chipped in with 2/ 15.
70 was too small a target to defend against the powerful CSK . Shane Watson did not trouble the scorers out for zero. Suresh Raina scored ( 19) and in the process completed 5000 runs in the IPL. Ambati Rayudu scored 28 before been dismissed. Ravindra Jadeja not out 6 and Kedar Jadhav not out 13 saw the CSK home .
The only solace for RCB was that they stretched CSK to 17.4 overs to overhaul the target of 70. Virat Kohli and Gary Kirsten will have lot to think about
