Recent Match Report – CSK vs GT 7th Match 2024

Chennai Super Kings 206 for 6 (Dube 51, Ravindra 46) beat Gujarat Titans 143 for 8 (Sudharsan 37, Chahar 2-28, Deshpande 2-21) by 63 runs

The new faces of Chennai Super Kings impressed against the team they took down in the IPL 2023 final, signalling that the post-MS Dhoni era could also be filled with lots of success.

Rachiiiiin Rachin!

Rachin is a front-foot player. His trigger movement is a slight step forward and the drives are the best part of his game. That’s all natural. That’s all instinct. As he moved up the levels, he worked really hard on a back-foot game and now watching him, there’s almost no bias.

He was straight-driving sixes. He was front-foot pulling boundaries. He was pouncing on rare short balls from Rashid Khan. This was a batter showing off just how early he was picking length and just how good his hand-eye coordination is. He was never out of position. He was never rushed. He never even looked like he was trying. His 42 off 20 balls is already in the Super Kings hall of fame because he hit nine boundaries, the joint-fifth-most by any CSK batter inside the powerplay in all IPL history.

Dube destroys spin

Left-arm spinner Sai Kishore and Rashid Khan were immense in helping Titans shut down Mumbai Indians in their first match of the season. Here they were almost not allowed to finish their full quota of overs. Because Shivam Dube.

The first ball of the 11th over resulted in Ajinkya Rahane’s wicket. The second and third were sent up into orbit by the one of the league’s best spin-hitters.

Dube’s story might well be the strongest argument in favour of role-clarity in T20 cricket. Here was a power-hitter who had only one fifty from his first 22 IPL innings because teams kept using him as a finisher. He isn’t that, because he is still a work in progress against fast bowling.

All the power he had was going to waste, until CSK came calling in 2022 and decided they’d use him against the slower bowlers; against the kind of people he can just plant that front foot down and use all of his wingspan. Even Rashid wasn’t able to keep Dube quiet. That’s the quality of his spin-hitting. He has 57 sixes since the switch to yellow and that puts him level with IPL legend Andre Russell and Liam Livingstone and behind only Jos Buttler (59).

Rizvi rises

At the fall of Dube’s wicket, with less than two overs to go, Chepauk might have expected Dhoni to stride out to the middle. The camera certainly did. It kept panning to him in the dressing room.

Instead, it was 20-year old Rizvi who stepped up. And he swept the first ball that he faced in the IPL for six. That it happened to be Rashid bowling and that he hit him for another six – this one a bit of a mis-hit as he charged out of his crease and swung himself almost off his feet – only added to the occasion. If this is the new CSK, there’s going to be a few more special years ahead.

More to follow