The fresh strip made life challenging for the batters at a venue where batting records were broken for fun barely a week before, when SRH took on Mumbai Indians. On Friday, sent into bat, CSK reached 84 for 2 after the ten-over mark. But once the ball got older, run-scoring became tough, and the SRH quicks slowed it down while also getting their lengths right.
“As the ball got older, it got slower and slower and we couldn’t capitalise at the end, plus they used the conditions really well.”
CSK’s hopes of defending 165 were quickly blown away by Abhishek and Travis Head, who added 46 for the opening wicket in 16 balls. Head was dropped off the second ball of the innings by Moeen Ali at slip off Deepak Chahar, and Abhishek whacked Mukesh Choudhary for 27 runs in the second over. There was no coming back for CSK from there.
“I think 170-175 was still a par score given we would have had a great powerplay to start off in the bowling department,” Gaikwad said. “But we didn’t have a great powerplay with one catch dropped and one big over. To drag the game till the 18th [19th] over was a great effort.”
Markram took the game forward, first adding 60 runs with Head and then a run-a-ball 26 with Shahbaz Ahmed. SRH slowed down in the middle overs, but the platform made life easier for them as they got over the line with 11 balls to spare.
“As the ball got a little bit older and softer, it started to slow up and take a little bit of spin and obviously it got a little bit tougher,” Markram said. “When you get on a tricky wicket, you still have to value the in-batter, you need to value that position.”
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