Conway, Dube, Deshpande gift CSK 3rd victory in Tata IPL 2023

It was home ground M Chinnaswamy Stadium for Royal Challengers Bangalore on Monday, as they played against the 4th time IPL winning team Chennai Super Kings, led by non-other than Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

After winning the toss, RCB skipper Faf du Plessis opted to bowl first, which gave MSD an option to bat first.

Opening for CSK, Monday’s seemed to be an upsetting one for the power hitter Rituraj Gaikwad who had to walk back to pavilion in the initial over of powerplay. However, another opener Devon Conway made the most of it and scored all across the ground. Conway (83), along with Ajinkya Rahane (37) and Shivam Dube (52) gave CSK an explosive start. By the time 20 overs were completed, CSK had put a massive score of 226 runs after losing 6 wickets.

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RCB bowlers could not do anything specific and apart from Mohammed Siraj, everyone’s economy was over 10 runs. All the bowlers — Mohammed Siraj, Wayne Parnell, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Glenn Maxwell, Wanindu Hasaranga de Silva and Harshal Patel — managed to clinch just one wicket each respectively.

Chasing 227 in 120 balls is not a matter of joke and that too when it has to be chased against MSD’s CSK. Like CSK’s Rituraj, RCB’s Kohli had a bad day, as he too walked towards pavilion in the very first over. Following this, Mahipal Lomror was sent, but he too had to walk back soon.

With things blowing out of proportion and a massive score to chase, RCB skipper Faf du Plessis and Glenn Maxwell took the responsibility and gave the much needed partnership. Plessis scored 62 runs in 33 balls, while Maxwell scored 76 runs in 36 balls. Both the explosive batters were caught behind by MSD.

After Maxwell and Plessis, the RCB team lost its momentum, wickets fell one after the other. Tough Dinesh Karthik (28) and Suyash Prabhudessai (19) tried to keep up with the pace of the game, but the RCB squad managed to put just 218 runs on scoreboard and lost by 8 runs by the end of 20 over after losing 8 wickets.

For CSK, Tushar Deshpande took 3 wickets, Matheesha Pathirana picked 2, while Akash Singh, Maheesh Theekshana and Moeen Ali clinched 1 wicket each.

With this win against RCB, MS Dhoni’s CSK has moved up to third position, while Faf du Plessis slipped to 7th spot in the Tata IPL 2023.