RCB vs CSK, IPL 2020: Gaikwad, spinners set up eight-wicket win over Bangalore

Ruturaj Gaikwad top-scored with an unbeaten 51-ball 65 as Chennai Super Kings made light work of Royal Challengers Bangalore's 146-run target.

Ruturaj Gaikwad spearheaded CSK's run chase with a fine half-century.

Chennai Super Kings lived to fight another day with a clinical eight-wicket win over Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Dubai International Stadium on Sunday. The three-time champion took to the slow, spin-friendly conditions like a duck to water and chased down the 146-run target with eight deliveries to spare. It was the same pitch on which Kings XI Punjab had defended 126 against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Saturday.

Ruturaj Gaikwad top-scored with an unbeaten 51-ball 65 (4x4, 3x6), an innings that saw some excellent use of the feet. He was ably assisted by Ambati Rayudu (39, 27, 3x4, 2x6), with the 67-run second-wicket partnership between the two, helping CSK notch up only its fourth win of the campaign.

RCB, which could have gone top of the table, did itself no favours with an underwhelming bowling performance. Where the CSK medium-pacers and spinners bowled wicket-to-wicket and mixed it up well, the RCB bowlers, especially the quicks, were largely one dimensional.

 

Faf du Plessis and Gaikwad feasted on the pace that Chris Morris and Mohammed Siraj provided, clubbing the duo for two sixes and three fours in their opening two overs. Navdeep Saini, introduced in the 10th, bowled fast but inexplicably short, with one-drop Rayudu smoking him over point for a six and a four.

At the midway stage, CSK was 82 for one and when Siraj was reintroduced in the 12th over, Gaikwad came up with a sparkling drive to the cover fence before Rayudu whacked him straight down with a flat bat. Yuzvendra Chahal breached Rayudu’s defence in the 14th over to get a toe in the door. But Morris undid everything, bowling two short balls that MS Dhoni steered to the backward square-leg boundary. It was apt that Gaikwad finished things off with a four and a six off Morris.

 

AB, Kohli show the way

Earlier, after RCB elected to bat, the 82-run third-wicket stand off 68 balls between Virat Kohli (50, 43b, 1x4, 1x6) and AB de Villiers (39, 36b, 4x4) held the innings together. The two joined forces just after PowerPlay. Aaron Finch had fallen cheaply again (15) while Devdutt Padikkal had failed to capitalise on yet another start (22, 21b, 2x4, 1x6).

Kohli and de Villiers went about their jobs with a workmanlike approach, in complete contrast to Finch and Padikkal, who had perished while trying to impose themselves. There were only six hits to the boundary, as Dhoni used the spin trio of Mitchell Santner, Imran Tahir and Ravindra Jadeja to stifle RCB. But Kohli and de Villiers ran hard and allowed just 16 dot balls.

 

When Kohli sent Jadeja soaring over his head in the 17th over, it appeared to signal a shift of gears. But RCB lost de Villiers, Moeen Ali and Kohli in a span of 10 balls, all three caught at long-off. Du Plessis’s effort to remove Kohli was especially eye-catching, for the remarkable speed at which he bolted across the turf to complete the catch. The South African’s colleagues later ensured that it wouldn’t go to waste.