CHENNAI: There are slow pitches. Then there are a few like the one at MA Chidambaram Stadium. It’s known for aiding spinners and it’s often a safer bet to go with them rather than pacers. But the strip for Saturday’s game was different from what is usually the norm here.
Chennai’s spinners extracted plenty of turn as Bangalore crumbled for 70, a far cry from the average innings total of 167 that Chepauk has been yielding.
The two-paced, spitting nature from the very beginning made one wonder if this was an ideal T20 wicket. “I think the wicket needs to get much better. Harbhajan has the kind of experience needed to bowl on this wicket,” captain MS Dhoni said.
Unsure how the pitch would behave, Dhoni opted for just three overseas players — Shane Watson, Dwayne Bravo and Imran Tahir — in the XI. Leaving out Faf du Plessis, the defending champions brought in another spinner in Harbhajan. Hedging their bets on the general nature of the surface, they were repaid.
With Deepak Chahar keeping things tight from the other end, the off-spinner bowled four straight overs, triggering Bangalore’s collapse by dismissing Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers and Moeen Ali.
Inserted by Dhoni, Kohli’s men were struggling to middle the ball and were bundled out with 17 balls left. Eight batsmen were scalped by spinners. “It was a wicket that turned more than expected. We would have liked to play on a pitch that wouldn’t have turned that much. Hopefully, wickets will be better (for other matches),” said Harbhajan.
Bangalore misread the pitch and went in with only one mainstream spinner in Yuzvendra Chahal. Leaving out Pawan Negi and Washington Sundar hurt the team when Chahal and all-rounder Moeen Ali had finished their quotas and Kohli was forced to go back to pacer Navdeep Saini.
“It was not the ideal pitch for T20,” said Bangalore’s assistant coach Vikram Solanki. “We were surprised by how much it spun. Lack of pace makes things difficult. It spun far more than we thought it would. It was not an even contest. It’s fine if it has something for the bowlers but you need some sort of an opportunity to score as well. The XI was about right. I don’t think we played well enough and failed to get partnerships.”
Though Chennai would be happy with the way the match turned in their favour, they too wouldn’t have expected such a spin in the tale. With six more matches lined up at this venue, their home matches will come with a copious dash of spice.