With a win over CSK, RR ended the league stage at the second spot in the points table, and they will now face GT in Qualifier 1 at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. RR did extremely well to pull things back after Moeen Ali went berserk in the Powerplay. After a nervy middle-overs phase, Ravichandran Ashwin stepped up with the bat to guide his team home. Let’s look at some important moments from this fixture of IPL.
Moeen Ali’s Powerplay carnage
CSK scored the highest Powerplay score against RR this season, piling up 75 runs. Moeen Ali scored 78.67% of those runs, ending up with 59 runs off 21 balls inside the first six overs. He was severe on Trent Boult in the sixth over, smashing him for a Six, followed by five Fours, to score 26 runs off the over.
Along the way, Ali also scored the second-fastest fifty from a CSK player, reaching his milestone off 19 balls – Suresh Raina scored the fastest off 16 balls in 2014. Not only from CSK, but Ali also looked the best and the most comfortable batter in the match. He might have missed out on a hundred by seven runs, but he scored his 93 runs with 71% control on a pitch that wasn’t easy to score after the Powerplay.
The middle-overs choke
CSK had their best Powerplay of this season, with 75 runs on the board. At that time, it looked like they’ll finish with a score in excess of 200, but they could barely manage to double their first six-overs score in the next 14 overs. CSK struggled to reach 150, after applying breaks in the middle overs (7-15).
After scoring at 12.5 RPO in the first six overs, CSK scored at 4.67 RPO in the next nine. This was largely due to the spinners operating in that phase. Six of the nine overs were bowled by the RR spinners in the middle overs, maintaining a run rate of 4.67. The pitch wasn’t as good as it looked during the Powerplay and had a lot to offer to the spinners. Even RR could manage to score at only 5.78 RPO in the middle overs, where CSK bowled seven overs of spin.
Ashwin’s all-round brilliance
Ashwin was taken to the cleaners by Ali in the Powerplay and conceded 16 runs off his first over. However, he made a stunning comeback to end his spell with figures of 4-0-28-1. It wasn’t his only telling performance of the night, as he saved his best for the second inning.
Ashwin was promoted at number five, ahead of Riyan Parag and Shimron Hetmyer, but his inning was the one that got RR over the line. RR needed 75 off 52 balls when Ashwin arrived, and they had already slowed down during that phase. However, Ashwin breathed energy into the chase by counterattacking CSK.
Ashwin remained unbeaten on 40 off only 23 balls and guided RR through a tricky chase. He has improved his T20 game by leaps and bounds in this year’s IPL, and at this point in the season, Ashwin averages and strikes better than some of the big batters like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Kieron Pollard and Kane Williamson, to name a few.