Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings have had a similar run of form in IPL 2020 – both teams had just 3 wins in 9 matches as they headed to their clash in Abu Dhabi on Monday night.
Electing to bat first, Chennai Super Kings lost both Faf du Plessis and Shane Watson within the first four overs.
Jofra Archer accounting for du Plessis for 10 off 9 balls and impressive youngster Kartik Tyagi making short work of Watson for 8 off 3 balls.
As Archer started clocking the 150 kph mark, Sam Curran started struggling and ultimately fell to the pacer in the 9th over – CSK at 53/3 after 8.2 overs.
Rahul Tewatia accounted for Ambati Rayudu in the next over itself and Chennai found themselves struggling at 56/4.
MS Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja began the job of rebuilding but with the halfway mark of the innings upon them, CSK needed at least one of them to fire.
Unfortunately, neither found their rhythm on the night and ended up slowing down the batting. Chennai, in fact, went 50 balls without a boundary with Shreyas Gopal and Tewatia not conceding a single four or six between them.
In total, Chennai batsmen faced as many as 51 dot balls.
Jadeja managed four fours but CSK really struggled to get the innings going and ended up making 125/5 in 20 overs – the lowest first innings total this IPL.
The Chennai bowlers however gave their team the best possible start, especially with the low total they were defending.
Both Deepak Chahar and Josh Hazlewood found swing and between the two of them had sent back Ben Stokes, Robin Uthappa and Sanju Samson inside the first five overs.
Rajasthan Royals were suddenly struggling at 28/3 after 4.3 overs.
However, that’s when Jos Buttler took charge with a very out of form Steve Smith at the other end.
Playing some smart cricket, Buttler saw off the threat from Chahar and Hazlewood before laying into the spinners – he ended up hitting Shardul Thakur and Piyush Chawla for 48 off 27 balls.
He eventually brought up his half century off 37 balls and ended the match unbeaten on 70 off 48 balls with Smith having made 26 off 34 balls to take Rajasthan to a 7 wicket win with seven wickets and 15 balls to spare.
Rajasthan have now climbed to fifth on the points table.