Battle of weak links as Chennai face Bangalore in crucial mid-table clash
MUMBAI: Chennai Super Kings’ fragile bowling vis-a-vis Royal Challengers Bangalore’s struggling bating line-up put the sides on an even keel as the two heavyweights face-off in an important mid-table clash of the IPL here on Wednesday.
In cricket, when two strong and equally performing teams have a match-up, it promises a great contest but when two sides with specific weak-links are pited against each other it makes the contest all the more exhilarating.
Sample this. In 10 games that RCB has played so far, only six half-centuries have been recorded and out of them two belongs to skipper Faf du Plessis, which is a testimony to below-par bating show in the tourney.
In nine games that CSK have played so far, there hasn’t been a single bowler (pacers and spinners), who has bowled at an economy rate of less than 7.50 runs an over. The best economy rate is of Mahesh Theeksana (7.54) while Dwayne Bravo (14 wickets) and Mukesh Choudhary (11 wickets) have had poor economy rates of 8.73 and 9.82 runs per over average.
The match also becomes an enticing one as Virat Kohli has finally found some form going his way and Mahendra Singh Dhoni is back in the saddle and would do everything under his control to plot the downfall of India’s best bater.
Dhoni’s return as CSK skipper replacing an out-of-sorts and more so beret of ideas Ravindra Jadeja, proved beneficial as they outscored a formidable Sunrisers Hyderabad, keeping their campaign alive with six points from nine games.
While RCB are still on fith place with 10 points from as many games, they seemed to have lost a bit of momentum with three back-to-back defeats primarily due to shoddy bating shows.
They have been all-out for the season’s lowest score — 68 — and have also failed to chase a modest target of 145 in another game.
Even in their last game versus Gujarat Titans, Kohli’s 58 off 53 balls was one of the reasons that RCB failed to score more than 170, which was below-par on a good bating track.
In Kohli (186 runs in 10 games) and skipper Du Plessis (278 from 9 games), RCB have one of the scariest of opening pairs but it hasn’t really translated into big performances.
In case of Kohli, his form of late has been so bad that one can’t really blame him for taking his time to score runs.