MS Dhoni would be proud of Faf du Plessis and the way he chased down the total agianst Sunrisers Hyderabad. Du Plessis, opening the batting for CSK, played a stunning innings (67* off 42) and helped his team recover from 62/6 in the 13th over. His innings was so special that he remained unbeaten only for the second time in an IPL chase. He made it man-on-man with the bowler at the death. SRH went ahead with Carlos Brathwaite in the 18th over and Du Plessis pounced on him and took 20 runs to shift the momentum in CSK's favour. They need 43 off 18 balls but the South African fnished the game with a six off the first ball of the final over and took CSK to their seventh IPL final in nine seasons. Rashid Khan had rocked the CSK chase with two wickets, including that of MS Dhoni, for just 11 runs from his four overs. His spell meant that CSK did not score even close to what they needed. They were always below run-a-ball until the 17th over. Shardul Thakur remained unbeaten on 15 off 5 with three boundaries in the 19th over which left CSK needing six from the final over. But this match came so close becuase of the Sunrisers Hyderabad bowlers, who have agian and again defended low totals this season. Shane Watson was removed by Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the first over and then Siddarth Kaul bowled Suresh Raina and Ambati Rayudu off consecutive balls. Then Rashid Khan bamboozled MS Dhoni with googly and had CSK on the backfoot. Rashid then removed Dwayne Bravo by extra bounce as he edged one to Shikhar Dhawan at slips. Sandeep Sharma also picked up two wickets, getting rid of Ravindra Jadeja and Deepak Chahar. CSK were 92 for the loss of seven wickets and looking more and more out of the game before Du Plessis played that blinder. A similar situation was seen in the SRH innings where they lost regular wickets and the Carlos Brathwaite played a camero to take them to 139 for 7 after being put into bat. CSK bowlers used the conditions brilliantly and Dhoni also rotated his bowlers smartly. SRH captain Kane Willamson (24), Yusuf Pathan (24) and Brathwaite (43 in 29 balls) were the useful contributors for Sunrisers on a track that offered good bounce. It all started with Chahar getting the wicket of Dhawan off the first ball of the match. Dhawan played one back on to his stumps. SRH were reduced to 47 for 3 with Williamson, caught behind down the leg-side, and Sreewats Goswami, caught and bowled by Lungi Ngidi, back in the hut. Shakid Al Hasan was dismissed Bravo and then Ravindra Jadeja (1 for 13) sent back Manish Pandey cheaply as half the Sunrisers was back in the pavilion with only 69 on the board.
