Royal Challengers Bangalore successfully defended 173 runs, defeating Chennai Super Kings by 13 runs at the MCA Stadium in Pune to reach the top-4 in IPL 2022 table on Wednesday.
Mahipal Lomror, Harshal Patel and Josh Hazlewood starred in RCB’s win.
Chennai Super Kings (CSK) had their spinners to thank after they restricted RCB to 173 in their 20 overs.
Maheesh Theekshana starred with a 3-wicket haul, while Moeen Ali also bagged two on his return to the side to derail RCB.
Mahipal Lomror top-scored with a fine 42, while Faf du Plessis and Dinesh Karthik also chipped in with cameos.
Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis got RCB off to a fast start piling on 56 in the powerplay to put them on the front foot against CSK.
While Kohli continues to play anchor, Du Plessis took the attack against his former side scoring at a strike rate of over 200.
Moeen Ali put breaks on that partnership dismissing Du Plessis. Maxwell soon followed with a sharp run out from Robin Uthappa, before Moeen castled Virat Kohli with a peach of a delivery to leave RCB reeling at 79/3.
Rajat Patidar and Mahipal Lomror put on a counter-attacking stand to pull RCB out of trouble and wrestle back control.
However, some fine bowling from Maheesh Theekshana ensured that RCB never got going late in the innings and it took some lusty blows from Dinesh Karthik to take them past 170.
CSK had made a strong start in the Powerplay, scoring 51/0 in six overs but Shahbaz Ahmed provided the RCB with the big breakthrough, dismissing Ruturaj Gaikwad on 28.
however In the end, Harshal Patel hurt the CSK with three wickets in his spell as Dhoni’s side endured a seventh loss in the season.
For the Chennai Super Kings, Fomer West indies All rounder Dwayne Bravo is missing his second consecutive game in this edition of the Indian Premier League.
“We have a couple of changes. As you mentioned [about] our injury list, Bravo is not fit for this game and Shivam also moves out. Devon [Conway] and Simarjeet [Singh] come in their place,” MS Dhoni said at the toss against SRH.
The West Indies pacer and the highest wicket-taker in the history of the tournament missed the last game against Sunrisers Hyderabad due to a niggle and it looks like he is yet to gain complete fitness for the today IPL match.
MS Dhoni confirmed that Bravo is having some fitness issues.
Bravo has picked up as many as 14 wickets from 8 games at an average of 18.50.
“We will bowl first. It stops a bit initially. And it’s one of the venues where toss doesn’t matter much because it’s an open ground so the dew sets in pretty late. One change, in place of Santner we have Moeen.
We have had partnerships and we want to be more consistent,” said Chennai Super Kings captain MS Dhoni during the toss.