CHENNAI: When Gujarat Titans captain Shubman Gill won the toss and elected to bowl first at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Sunday, it brought a surprise of sorts. With the pitch – a mixture of black and red soil – seemingly having cracks, being asked to bat first did not seem bad at all. Chennai Super King’s skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad at the toss also explained the pitch as ‘dry.’ “It's a bit on the drier side and more often than not, it will remain the same. We have to start assessing how the pitch is, bat accordingly, and then try and defend it,” he told the broadcaster.
However, little did they know that the pitch would throw them off. Under the baking sun, it seemed as if the pitch had some dampness which offered extra bounce for the pacers. And the bowling troika of Mohammed Siraj, Kagiso Rabada and Jason Holder made the most of it to rattle Super Kings batters. Early on, Rabada did not have the best of starts, bowling deliveries between length and back of lengths to CSK opener Sanju Samson. And he duly got punished. . Then in the third over, Rabada continued to bowl those lengths to keep Samson on his toes, before the wicketkeeper-batter nicked a wider delivery to Jos Buttler.
With Urvil Patel coming to make his first appearance this season, it was important for him to get a good start. And he seemed to get going, slamming the first ball off Rabada for four. The South African responded with 149 KPH delivery on hard length which Patel mis-timed. Buttler did the rest as he always does. By now, Rabada kept the crowd – which was around 30,000 at the time of the first innings – largely quiet. In the end, CSK could only manage 158/7, which was not enough as Titans got across the line.
CSK head coach Stephen Fleming admitted that the conditions caught him by surprise. “It was very tough to bat in the first innings. They GT (bowlers) bowled well, they extracted extra bounce. There was moisture in it, due to the heat, and they were able to extract some uneven bounce and create some problems for us and we just couldn't get momentum until the last three or four overs, so some of it was self-induced. We just couldn't get a grasp on that wicket,” he told reporters in the post-match press conference.
That the pitch offered uneven bounce and movement added to Fleming’s surprise because of the fact that it ‘spun’ in their previous home game, where they beat Kolkata Knight Riders by 32 runs. “We were expecting something similar but it was a little bit different to that,” he said. Skipper Gaikwad had sung from the same hymn sheet earlier during the chat with the broadcasters.
However, this is not the first time it has happened. In their first match, CSK struggled to adapt to pacy conditions in Guwahati. Over the last couple of years, they have not felt at home in flatter conditions in Chennai. Now, having a team that is crowded with top-order batters, Chennai has once again fallen short at the slightest sign of challenge in conditions. What is more worrying is Fleming saying that they thought the pitch would get slower and the score was competitive. “We actually thought 160 was competitive, but we just couldn't extract the same amount, so obviously it dried out, there was a change, it was going to get slower, we just couldn't extract the same type of assistance as what they did in the first 10 overs,” added the coach.
It is the kind of belief that led to them subbing out Sarfaraz Khan instead of a bowler once they lost two early wickets. Panic set in and they ended up falling short on the bowling side of things. “The security needed to have an extra bowler or an extra batter, and when it's nipping around and a little bit of bounce, then we had to make a call pretty early to try and extend the batting order,” Fleming said.
For a team that is desperate for turnaround to keep their campaign alive, Super Kings cannot afford to make such mistakes in the coming games. They have a week’s time to regroup and recalibrate before the clash against Mumbai Indians on Saturday.
