Clinical Chennai register Royal victory to stay in top four

CHENNAI: Ruturaj Gaikwad’s valuable 42 not out and Simarjeet Singh’s 3/26 came in handy for defending champions Chennai Super Kings to beat Rajasthan Royals by five wickets at the MA Chidambaram stadium here on Sunday. With the win, Chennai go third in the point table and remain very much in contention for the play-offs.

Set a target of 142 for a win, CSK openers Ruturaj and Rachin Ravindra went about the task in a professional manner. Having reduced Rajasthan to a gettable score, the CSK top-order was high in confidence and one could see the measured and risk-free manner in which they accumulated runs. When Rachin was well set to play a long innings, he was done by R Ashwin’s change of pace and was caught and bowled. Thereafter, Ruturaj and Daryl Mitchell stitched a useful partnership and ensured that the hosts were on track.

Ruturaj waited for the right ball to attack and his huge six off Nandre Burger over the backward square-leg fence was perhaps the shot of the evening as it had grace written all over it. Rajasthan skipper Sanju Samson kept employing pace-spin combinations on a regular basis. He replaced Ashwin with Yuzvendra Chahal. The leggie trapped Mitchell on the pads and later Burger induced Moeen Ali to play a false stroke to Avesh Khan.

Meanwhile, Ravindra Jadeja was given out obstructing the field. Jadeja dabbed Avesh to third man and was halfway down the pitch for the second run but Ruturaj wasn’t keen. Third man hurled it to Samson who caught the ball and had a shy at the bowler’s end but the throw hit Jadeja. The third umpire, after seeing the replay, gave Jadeja out. All along Ruturaj stood rock solid at one end and, along with Sameer Rizvi, took CSK home in a must win game.

Earlier, opting to bat,Rajasthan had a sedate start. Both openers Yashasvi Jaiswal and Jos Buttler could not force the pace. In the first three overs the duo could manage only 14 runs. Ruturaj employed pace and spin to stifle the run flow as the visitors made 42 runs in the powerplay without any damage. The drinks break affected Jaiswal’s concentration and he fell to Simarjeet. Butler was restless to score as he was tied down by Ravindra Jadeja. Simarjeet reaped the rewards as he bowled a fuller one which Buttler tried to scoop, but miscued it towards fine leg where Tushar completed a stunning catch diving to his right. Now, a lot depended on Sanju and Parag. Parag struggled against Jadeja while Samson was subdued and was unable to pick the gaps or score boundaries by hitting over the top. Once again Simarjeet rose to the occasion and ended Sanju’s suffering. From thereon, Parag and Dhruv Jurel took RR to 141/5.

Brief scores: Rajasthan Royals 141/5 in 20 ovs (Jurel 28, Parag 47 not out, Deshpande 2/30, Simarjeet 3/26) lost to Chennai Super Kings 145/5 in 18.2 ovs (Rachin 27, Gaikwad 42 not out; Ashwin 2/35, Burger 1/21).