CHENNAI: AFTER Punjab skipper Shreyas Iyer’s composed fifty, Shashank Singh (14 n.o) and Marcus Stoinis (9 n.o) completed the chase of 210 runs against Chennai Super Kings to win by five wickets at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Friday. This is Punjab's seventh win in eight games against the five-time winners. For CSK, this is their sixth consecutive loss at home.
Shashank and Stoinis, known for their explosive cameos, played sensible shots to help chase the target with eight balls to spare.
Iyer, with his upright open-chested stance and a very high back lift, played his shots with freedom and will. That helped him to play the upper cut as well as the pull shot with ease. His end came when he holed out Anshul Kamboj to Rahul Chahar at deep point. By then, his job was done.
Coming in at 95/2, Iyer, along with orange cap holder Cooper Connolly, made sure that the scoreboard kept ticking. Nehal Wadhera also lent good support and helped his skipper by holding at one end and rotating the strike. In the beginning of the chase, Punjab openers Priyansh Arya and Prabhsimran Singh stitched a 61-run partnership for the opening wicket to give the visitors a strong start. It was CSK’s Kiwi pacer Matt Henry who gave the breakthrough. Arya’s attempted pull shot did not meet the ball, instead castling his off-stump.
Earlier, Ayush Mhatre's valuable 73 and contributions from Shivam Dube (45 n.o) and Sarfaraz Khan (32) helped CSK post 209 runs for five. The 31,000 gathered at the arena enjoyed Mhatre’s knock and Sarfaraz’s calculated assault.
Mhatre, riding on the generosity of the Punjab fielders played one of his authoritative innings for CSK. He started to attack from the word go and reaped rich dividends. He was at ease playing all the fast bowlers of Punjab, but had problems against leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal.
Put in to bat, The hosts lost their star batter Sanju Samson early for just seven runs. This was Samson’s first game at Chepauk after joining CSK. The crowd expected a good knock from the Kerala-wicketkeeper batter, but that was not to be. For the first 10 balls, both Samson and Ruturaj Gaikwad played patiently without trying anything big. Samson thumped the 11th ball from Xavier Bartlett between the gaps wide of mid-off for four. Then, in the very next ball, Samson moved away from the stumps and wanted to play a similar shot to the previous one, but all he could manage was an edge to Prabhsimran Singh, behind the stumps with Bartlett bagging the prized scalp. As soon as Mhatre joined Gaikwad, a run-fest followed.
Ayush displayed excellent stroke play with his sense of timing and placement. He exploited the 15 yard field restriction and notched up 15 runs of a Xavier over. He struck three consecutive boundaries off the Australian pace bowler to send the crowd into wild celebrations.
Mhatre’s sixes were all out of his confidence which grew after the early carnage. His front-foot six off a snorter from Marco Jansen sailed into the stands at square leg and had grace written all over it.
The introduction of the experienced Chahal brought the run rate down as both Gaikwad and Mhatre took the cautious route. Then, Mhatre returned to his glittering best, as he rushed to 50 off 29 balls. His captain’s knock came to an end when his shot off Chahal found a running Nehal Wadhera at long leg. While at 59 Ayush enjoyed a slice of luck. He was dropped by Shashank off Chahal in the extra covers. Then, he fell to Vijaykumar Vyshak with Yuzvendra Chahal taking the catch at short third man.
Sarfaraz show
While Ayush showed brilliant shotmaking, Sarfaraz Khan took the crowd by surprise with out-of-the box strokes. The Mumbai based batter who has been overlooked by the national selectors repeatedly, chose to make an impression with his new team.
He struck three consecutive boundaries off Arshdeep Singh to display his sense of timing and execution. Sarfraz then wacked Xavier Bartlett to the deep square leg fence for a huge six to the delight of the crowd.
Brief scores: CSK 209/5 in 20 ovs (Mhatre 73, Dube 45 n.o, Sarfaraz 32; Vijaykumar 2/38) lost to PBKS 210/5 in 18.4 ovs (Shreyas 50, Prabhsimran 43).
