CHENNAI: Since the first auction, Chennai Super Kings have somehow managed to pick the right players to suit their requirements. In the latest auction as well, they bought Mustafizur Rahman for his base price of Rs 2 crore. And CSK got early hints of how valuable that acquisition can prove to be here on Friday. The left-arm pacer returned with figures of 4/29, helping the defending champions to restrict Royal Challengers Bangalore to 173 for 6 in 20 overs.
He accounted for Faf du Plessis, Rajat Patidar, Virat Kohli and Cameron Green. After RCB were reduced to 78/5, Dinesh Karthik (38 n.o) and Anuj Rawat (48) added 95 runs off 50 balls for the sixth wicket to enable RCB to post 173. The hosts, however, did not face much difficulty in achieving the target as they won the match in 18.4 overs with six wickets in hand.
Earlier, the RCB skipper Du Plessis opted to bat after winning the toss and straight away got into the act picking up boundaries through an off drive, flick and over the top extra cover drive off an erratic Deepak Chahar. His pull of Chahar where the ball raced to the mid wicket fence had grace written all over it for the excellent timing and foot work. Both Chahar and Tushar Deshpande could not contain Du Plessis. This is when new skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad brought in Mustafizur into the attack and was suitably rewarded. The Bangladesh bowler after being driven for a boundary, changed the line and varied the pace to induce Du Plessis to play a false shot to Rachin Ravindra at deep cover.
Two balls later, he once again forced a nervous Patidar to edge an angled and length delivery to MS Dhoni behind the stumps. Suddenly RCB were under immense pressure at 41/2 and this had a ripple effect. Deepak inspired by Mustafizur bowled with a lot more zest. His victim was none other than the dangerous Glenn Maxwell. Maxwell tried to work a ball to third man which was pitched on the off side, but could only manage an edge to Dhoni. This sent the crowd into wild celebrations.
Thereafter Kohli and Green tried to steady the rocking boat with some sensible batting. Kohli who was subdued by his tall standards found some runs but his joy was shortlived. In order to up the run rate, he pulled Mustafizur, but the shot did not have the fire to clear the fence. Rahane from deep mid-wicket moved to his right and took the catch with a slide, then passed it to Ravindra who completed the catch.
Brief scores: RCB 173/6 in 20 ovs (Rawat 48, Karthik 38 n.o; Mustafizur 4/29) lost to CSK 176/4 in 18.4 ovs (Ravindra 37, Dube 34 n.o; Green 2/27).