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TATA INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE – 2024:

Match No. 1:
Chennai Super King (CSK) Vs. Royal Challengers, Bengaluru (RCB) on March 22 (20.00 Hrs. IST), 2024 at MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai.
Captain – Rituraj Gaekwad (CSK) and Fap Du Plessis (RCB)
RCB won the toss and chose to bat first.
The inaugural match in the Tata IPL – 24 started with the curtain-raiser in the MA Chidambaram Stadium where the hosts and the reigning champion franchise CSK took on the batsmen-loaded RCB captained by the South African star batsman Fap Du Plessis, the home team was led by Dhoni’s understudy young Rituraj Gaekwad.
Dipak Chahar opened the bowling of CSK, and the first boundary was hit by Du Plessis on the fifth ball of the over yielding seven runs in all. The other opener Tushar Deshpande, the first ball was flicked off the toes by the South African for a four. The next ball outside the off-stump kept low and beat the bat as the batsman was cramped for room. The third ball punched off the backfoot through the cover-point for a four. The fifth ball that kept low had taken the edge and passed perilously close to the off stump. the eventful second over was bowled by the young bowler generating good pace and ended with the scoreboard showing 16 for none.
The first ball of the third over bowled by Chahar was dispatched over the head of the long-off for a four. The next, one bowled fast, a bouncer, and was adjudged wide. The next two balls were hit for consecutive fours by Du Plessis playing on the backfoot that pierced the off-side field. Fap was batting on 26 of 15 balls and Virat was a mere spectator on the non-striker end during the period. On the last ball of the over, Fap got another four through a short-arm pull to the square-leg fence. At the end of three overs, the score read 33 for no loss. The fourth over was bowled by the Sri Lankan mystery spinner, Theekshana, and four runs were scored off that.
The turning point was bringing on the Bangladeshi left-hand pacer Mustafizur Rahman when the score was 37 for no loss after four overs. However, the second ball was played through covers with impeccable timing by Du Plessis for a boundary. He tried to loft the next ball over the cover point off the back foot. This time, the young New Zealand superstar Rachin Ravindran patrolling as the off-side sweeper ran ahead and dived in front of him to take a catch inches from the ground to dismiss the dangerous Du Plessis (35 of 23 balls, 8x 4). Rajat Patidar, the next batsman, was greeted with a pacy delivery and beaten outside his off stump. The left-armer showed character after being hit for a four in the second ball and made a good comeback, not only for him but for his team too. The last ball from Mustafizur took the outside edge of Rajat’s bat and MSD did the rest behind the stump. The over gave two wickets to the home team giving only four runs, and importantly that was the turning point of the match.
Chahar was brought back in the sixth over intelligently by the rooky captain who had the advantage of the guidance of ‘Captain Cool’, as MSD was popularly known. The third wicket fell, this time it was Glenn Maxwell who was caught behind by a golden duck. The third over-seas recruit of the batting team, Cameroon Green (Australia) played the following balls tentatively. Virat was batting on 5 runs and was seeing all these happenings. The batters had to shift gear and were playing sensibly till the score reached 76 for three wickets after 11 overs when Virat (21 off 20 balls, 1x6) and Cameroon (18 off 22 balls, 1x4) were batting as if rebuilding the innings.
In the twelfth over, Virat got out to Mustafizur Rahman, and the bowler also accounted for Green and broke the backbone of the visiting team. His bowling analysis read as 1.4 – 0 – 6 – 4; what an arrival to the new edition of this popular tournament! The conservative way of batting continued for some time till the fifth wicket pair of A. Rawat (48 off 25 balls, 4x4, 3x6) and Dinesh Karthik (38 off 26 balls, 3x4, 2x6) carried the score to a respectable score of 173 for six. Rawat was unlucky to miss his fifty and was run out in the ultimate ball of their innings, by the smart work from that smart wicketkeeper Mohinder Singh Dhoni.
The bowling by the fast bowlers, Dipak Chahar (one for 37 with econ. 9.25), and Tushar Deshpande (none for 47 with econ. 11. 75) went for plenty of runs. The spinners, M. Theekshana (none for 36 with an econ. 9.00), and Jadeja (none for 21 with an econ. 5.25) bowled adequately; but the star of the bowlers was Mustafizur Rahman (four for 29 with an econ. 7.25).
There was a lengthy break between the innings as the home crowd and the television audience were waiting with bated breath for the second half of the match. Before this match, head-on-head, CSK was much ahead of RCB, winning 20 against 10 losses to their South arch-rivals (67 percent win rate), the win probability was the same 67 percent for CSK at this stage.
The openers Rituraj Gaekwad (captain) and Rachin Ravindran were to open the innings to chase down this modest score of RCB. Ajinkya Rahane, Daryll Mitchell. Ravindra Jadeja (batting superbly, of late), and above all, the best chaser the game has ever seen perhaps in MSD were to follow them.
Rituraj and Ravindran started the chase in the right earnest. While the former played conventionally like a captain, the New Zealander smasher made a mincemeat of the visiting bowlers. They put on a bright start when Gaekwad (15 off 15 balls, 3x4) got out at the score reading after 4 overs at 38 for one; he was caught by Cameroon Green off the bowling of Yash Dayal. The second wicket fell to the score of 71 in the seventh over in the form of Rachin Ravindran (37 off 15 balls, 3x4, 3x6), and by that time the match was tilted toward the hosts. The rest became easier for the batsmen to follow when Ajinkya Rahane (27 off 19 balls, 2x6) played an attacking knock and got out caught by Glenn Maxwell off the bowling of Cameron Green. Before that Ravindran was caught by Rajat Patidar off the bowling of Karn Sharma. Daryl Mitchell (22 off 18 balls) followed the tempo and scored a good knock and got out caught by Patidar off the bowling of Cameroon Green.
The chase became an easy affair when the unbroken pair of Shivam Dube (34 off 28 balls, 2x6) and Ravindra Jadeja (25 off 17 balls,x6), and took their team to 176 for four with eight balls to spare.
Among the bowlers, there is nothing special to mention. Seven bowlers were tried, among whom Y. Dayal (one for 28 with an econ. 9.33) and Karn Sharma (one for 24 with an econ. 12.00) were among the wickets, while the rest of which was Siraj (none for 38), A, Joseph (none for 38), M. Dagar (none for 6), C. Green (none for 27), and G. Maxwell (none for 7) turned their arms.
It was a clinical run-chase, and CSK won, yet again, the tournament opener and started the Tata IPL – 24 in the right way, that is a winning way!
Man of the Match: Mustafizur Rahman.
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