Live blog - Chennai Super Kings vs Gujarat Titans - Dube, Ravindra ...

12m ago

Ravindra's blazing start. Dube's assault on the GT spinners. Sameer Rizvi's surprise cameo.

If this is new CSK, we've got some special stuff in store for the next few years.

50m ago

But in walks Sameer Rizvi - ahead of MS Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja, batting for the first time in the IPL, on the back of an INR 8.4 crore deal, to face Rashid - and he sweeps him for six straight away. What a moment! He's taken the world's greatest T20 bowler for 14 runs. He was doing this in the Uttar Pradesh T20 league. But to do it, at this level is just incredible!

57 sixes for Shivam Dube since IPL 2022, joint-second highest along with Andre Russell and Liam Livingstone in this period. On top is Jos Buttler with 59

He has been outstanding for CSK, and CSK have been outstanding in using him.

India could very well take a leaf out of their book and take him along to the T20 World Cup in the West Indies where the pitches may very well be slow and spin-friendly.

A guy who can hit Rashid and Narine for sixes is a massive asset in the middle overs. And like today, he can mess with teams' plans. GT haven't been able to bowl Rashid's full four overs because Dube's still out there.

Tall guy. Uses all his reach. Immense power. Perhaps the single greatest success story for role clarity in T20 cricket

1h ago

Mohit Sharma is such a boss. He knows he doesn't have all that much pace. He knows that means he can be easily lined up. So all he has to go on from there is to be unpredictable. He does that with his slower balls. But there are others who have gone down this route and aren't quite so successful - Harshal Patel, for example, has been found out.

Mohit though is still doing the tough job and he's doing it well. Because in addition to the slower ball, he also keeps varying his lengths and his lines. Look at that pitch map. Look at how he keeps trying things against the right-hander, never letting them line him up, and crucially never letting them target the leg side. When he's going full, he's going outside off, so if they want leg side, they have to drag him and that doesn't always work. When he is going straight, he pulls the length back, to cramp them up.

Against the left-hander, look at how careful he is about not giving Dube any room outside off, and threfore the chance to free his arms

1h ago

Dube's presence at the crease is throwing off GT's plans.

This is the stage where they'd have wanted Rashid and Sai Kishore to deal with things.

Not Johnson, who might be needed at the death. Johnson's gone through three overs already, the third bowled in the hope that he might take Dube out. But all that happens is Dube smashing him around too.

Rashid's going at 11 an over. Sai Kishore is going at 9. They each still have an over left. And spin-hitter Dube is still at the crease.

1h ago

These were Spencer Johnson's two overs in his first match

These are Spencer Johnson's two overs in this match

Safe to say, there's something about this guy. Gaikwad gone. CSK losing momentum. After overs that went for 12 and 15, they've only managed 7 and 2.

CSK have a loooooooong batting line-up. Eric Simmons, their bowling coach, spoke about it at the end of the last match, where they are encouraging everyone to shed any inhibition they might have and just keep going for it. The emphasis is on them playing as themselves - "Ajinkya Rahane should play like Ajinkya Rahane, not like Chris Gayle." Pick your method and use it. Doesn't matter if you fail. And that kind of instruction is the reason why an over that began with Rahane's wicket has yielded 15 runs. Dube needed only two balls to collect almost as many runs as Sai Kishore had conceded across two full overs (13).

Ruturaj Gaikwad against pace is just baller.

He is comfortable on both the front foot and the back foot.

And now that he's set, he's unafraid to loft the ball.

Spencer Johnson, who bowls 145 kph, began with a short ball but he was met with a full-blooded pull shot that went WAY in front of square. That says Gaikwad picked the length early and he absolutely nailed it. There was a fielder on the midwicket boundary. His still going for that shot says he backs himself against pace whether they come running in with protection or not.

The over ends with a straight four, just one-bounce. What do you do when you face someone that good? Take pace off.

9 Gaikwad's rank among the highest boundary hitters against pace bowling since his IPL debut in 2020. He's smashed 160 of them - 114x4s and 44x6s. He's sitting there among people like Virat Kohli, Jos Buttler, Suryakumar Yadav and David Warner.

7.59 Rashid Khan's economy rate against CSK - his second worst against all teams in the IPL, behind SRH (8.41)

Deivarayan Muthu, from the ground, says the Rachiiiiin, Rachin chants are in full swing.

So Titans have turned to their trump card, Rashid Khan. He doesn't normally bowl in the powerplay and this is why. Ravindra greets him with a boundary.

9 boundaries hit by Ravindra today - joint fifth-most for CSK in the IPL inside the powerplay

He's gone though. 46 off 20, 6x4s, 3x6s, basically hitting a boundary every two balls faced. Titans have the breather they came to Rashid looking for. Though the wicket should go to Saha because he was alert to the ball dribbling down towards him and he flicked the bails off in a flash. Reflexes of a 19-year old, not 39 as his player profile says.

2h ago

137 Ravindra's career strike rate in the powerplay in T20s. He's going 100 points more than that in this IPL. Massive levelling up since that 2023 ODI World Cup performance

2h ago

CSK were taking on a lot of dot balls before Rachin Ravindra got going.

247 Ravindra's strike rate on Friday night. That is the highest strike rate by any IPL debutant across all 17 seasons (min 30 runs scored)

IPL debuts can often be unnerving - some of the biggest international names have had harsh initiations into the IPL - but Ravindra's was nerveless. After taking the catches of both Faf du Plessis and Virat Kohli in the hotspots at the boundary, he tore up the powerplay with the bat, in CSK's chase of 174 against RCB. With his hairstyle and athleticism, you could easily mistake him for another Ravindra from CSK - Jadeja, wrote Deivarayan Muthu in the lead-up to this game.

2h ago

We have a special treat for you guys later tonight. Irfan Pathan will be joining us on the ESPNcricinfo Live Report.

From Deivarayan Muthu at the ground: The Chepauk pitch that was used on Friday was an atypical one, with not much turn on offer for the spinners. Instead, the ball slid on to the bat nicely, especially in the early exchanges. Believe it or not, CSK's spinners didn't take a single wicket in the season-opener. It was only the second instance of CSK's spinners going wicketless at Chepauk since May 2015.

Speaking on his Youtube channel, R Ashwin felt that the current pitches are a throwback to the quick, bouncy ones in 2010. In that season, CSK had started with four seamers - Albie Morkel, L Balaji, Justin Kemp and Sudeep Tyagi. Today, CSK have strengthened their pace bowling even further by pairing Pathirana up with Mustafizur. Ashwin also credited the curator, Ramesh Kumar, for relaying the red-soil pitches, which now offer more bounce. During the season-opener, Faf suggested it was a typical Chennai pitch at the toss, but the way it behaved surprised quite a few.

Two new captains still getting used to the job and it becomes clear as Gill says bat first, and then immediately strikes it off and goes bowl first.

That might be a nod to how the pitch behaved in the first match - it had pace and bounce and a former Super King Matthew Hayden mentioned that this surface has grass on it so it will come onto the bat nicely too. Plus, one side of the ground is shorter than the other. 68m vs 64m. So that'll be hard to defend while bowling second.

Titans are unchanged. CSK have brought in Pathirana, whom Gaikwad calls, "our Malinga" in place of Theekshana

CSK: 1 Ruturaj Gaikwad (capt), 2 Rachin Ravindra, 3 Ajinkya Rahane, 4 Daryl Mitchell, 5 Shivam Dube, 6 Ravindra Jadeja, 7 Sameer Rizvi, 8 MS Dhoni (wk), 9 Deepak Chahar, 10 Mustafizur Rahman, 11 Tushar DeshpandeSubs: Matheesha Pathirana, Shardul Thakur, Shaikh Rashid, Nishant Sindhu, Mitchell Santner

Titans: 1 Shubman Gill (capt), 2 Wriddhiman Saha (wk), 3 Azmatullah Omarzai, 4 Vijay Shankar, 5 David Miller, 6 Rahul Tewatia, 7 Rashid Khan, 8 Umesh Yadav, 9 R Sai Kishore, 10 Spencer Johnson, 11 Mohit SharmaSubs: Sai Sudharsan, BR Sharath, Abhinav Manohar, Manav Suthar, Noor Ahmad

3h ago

Andha naal, nyabagam... (Memories of that day...)

Kohli vs Dhoni. Hardik vs his old team. And now a rematch of the 2023 final. Whoever drew up this IPL schedule wasn't kidding around. So neither will we. Lets just take this moment to savour the amazing cricket that we've already seen. Russell, Klaasen, Pant, Bumrah -- and the best part of it all is, we still got two months of this! Makes me wanna burst into song. But I won't. Because my singing voice is trash. Sai Kishore's on the other hand...

Wriddhiman Saha c Deshpande b Chahar 21 (17b 4x4 0x6) SR: 123.52