Sunrisers knocked out of contention after slipping to their ninth loss this season
Chennai Super Kings 139 for 4 (Gaikwad 45, du Plessis 41, Holder 3-27) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 134 for 7 (Saha 44, Hazlewood 3-24, Bravo 2-17) by six wickets
Chennai Super Kings stormed into the playoffs with a six-wicket victory over the now eliminated Sunrisers Hyderabad. While they are yet to be assured of a top-two spot, which offers two shots at a place in the final, the progress MS Dhoni’s men have shown this IPL season suggests that target may not be too far off their reach.
DJ in da house
Sunrisers were restricted to a meagre 134 for 7 on Thursday and this is how it happened.
The match was played on a fresh Sharjah pitch. It remains unhelpfully slow but early on it also offered sideways movement. So Dhoni was prompted to do something he rarely ever does. He turned to Dwayne Bravo (4-0-17-2). It was only the sixth time in five years that the West Indies allrounder was on as early as the seventh over of an IPL game.
But there was a reason for this and its name was Kane Williamson. The Sunrisers captain came into the game with an immense record against Super Kings – 327 runs at an average of 47 and strike rate of 145. Taking him out early means wrecking 90% of their batting plans. (Jason Roy had already been dismissed). So, Dhoni went to his “champion” and he obliged with a lovely outswinger that moved late, beat the bat, struck the pad and got the wicket.
The Super Kings squeeze
Sunrisers were now in a horrible predicament. Their best batters were back in the hut. There were still 13.3 overs to face. And their opposition has a long and storied history of exploiting slow pitches.
Full report to follow…
Alagappan Muthu is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo