IPL 2019, CSK vs KKR report: Deepak Chahar, spinners help maintain CSK’s 100 percent record at home

First innings: CSK practically won the match in the first innings. Deepak Chahar rattled the opposition with three wickets in his first three overs while Harbhajan Singh dismissed Sunil Narine in his first over. It meant KKR had lost their top order within the first three overs. Robin Uthappa and Dinesh Karthik looked to give some stability to the KKR batting but both fell to loose shots. Andre Russell came in after the dismissal of Karthik and while he got himself settled in, it looked like he might run out of partners before he can make an impact.

Shubman Gill was done by a googly from Imran Tahir. Gill had stepped out to meet the ball and it ended up slipping through to Dhoni who took off the bails before the batsman could get anything near the crease. After Piyush Chawla fell shortly after that, preservation of wickets then became the priority with Russell refusing singles and hogging the strike. He then managed 15 off the last over to push KKR into three figures.

Second innings: Shane Watson threatened to finish the chase before it even started, smashing 12 runs off the first over. But he was dismissed in the third and Suresh Raina also departed shortly after that due to trying one shot too many. However, it took a sharp catch from Piyush Chawla to dismiss Raina after which Faf du Plessis and Ambati Rayudu put up a 46-run stand to kill the game for all means and purposes. Rayudu was sent back by Chawla and Kedar Jadhav was in the middle when a wide delivery from Sunil Narine ran behind and ened the chase.

Gamechanger: The match didn’t have a gamechanger as much as a game-setter, which was Deepak Chahar’s spell early in the KKR innings. He set the tone for the rest of the innings, dismissing the danger Chris Lynn and accounting for the wickets of Robin Uthappa and Nitish Rana.

Captains speak:

Dinesh Karthik: Definitely not enough runs. Tricky games, games like these. You never know what’s a good score, with the dew and stuff. You always end up thinking you should have got more. Four wickets in the Powerplay was definite setback, but good to see Russell showing maturity. We were defending a small total and the spinners did well, I’m happy with that. It wasn’t a lack of concentration [from the batsmen], we’ve been on the road for two weeks. I’m okay with it [it doesn’t always work]. Message to the team: enjoy, forget tonight, next game’s a new day.

MS Dhoni: [On the fans] I’ve been here for a very long time and a lot of good things have happened here, including my Test debut. They love the team.

It became like the first game. Again we were cribbing about the track but we won. We’ve lost Bravo and it looks like this pitch suits us now but I don’t think we want to play on wickets like these because it becomes too low-scoring for the batsmen.
I think age is on their side [Bhajji and Tahir]. They’ve come up every time but once we go out to flatter wickets, we’ll have to see what combinations we’ve to play. Hopefully, Bravo comes back soon. [On whether he makes plans for the opposition] Not really, that’s the job of the bowling coach. I always say you set your own plans and if it doesn’t work on the field, I will come in. I feel it is important not to have too many plans. Nowadays I insist on one-on-one meetings, most of them I’m not even part of.