IPL 2024: Chennai Super Kings vs Gujarat Titans, 7th Match – Who Said What?

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Defending champions Chennai Super Kings picked up a comfortable victory over Gujarat Titans at MA Chidambaram Stadium. Be it with the bat or with the ball, the Ruturaj Gaikwad-led side dominated Gujarat and won the match by 63 runs. There were multiple positives for the side in the match, which should give them a lot of confidence going forward.

Notably, batting first, Rachin Ravindra gave a stunning start to the hosts. The New Zealand international smashed 46 runs off 20 deliveries while Gaikwad made the same amount of runs in 36 deliveries. After they got out, Shivam Dube took care of the business as he hit 51 runs off 23 deliveries. The all-rounder wreaked havoc in the middle as none of GT’s plans worked against him. Later, Sameer Rizvi and Ravindra Jadeja played small cameos as CSK posted 206 runs on board in the first innings.

When it came to the chase, Gujarat struggled right from the beginning. Wriddhiman Saha survived a close scare early on but he couldn’t take advantage of that as he walked back to the pavilion after scoring 21 runs. Skipper Shubman Gill hit a six on his first delivery but he too got out early, which created pressure on the visitors.

They failed to match the required run rate and kept losing wickets from time to time. Meanwhile, MS Dhoni, Ajinkya Rahane and Rachin picked up stunning catches during the chase, which were the highlights of the second innings. None of GT’s batters could impress, which is a massive concern as their batting unit looked ordinary in the first match against MI as well, even though they managed to win that one.

Also Read – MS Dhoni goes horizontal in air to dismiss Vijay Shankar

1.  Rachin Ravindra playing Sehwag way

His dad named him Rachin after Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar but the youngster batted like Virender Sehwag against Gujarat. He started brilliantly and took on the experienced bowlers of GT and eventually made 46 runs off just 20 deliveries. He got out in an unfortunate fashion, as the 24-year-old could decipher the location of the ball as Wriddhiman Saha stumped him in the sixth over. However, his brilliant knock will give him a lot of confidence for the remainder of the season.

2. Shivam Dube auditioning for T20 World Cup

With Rinku Singh, Suryakumar Yadav and Hardik Pandya available in contention for the T20 World Cup, there’s little to no buzz regarding Shivam Dube. Against Gujarat, the all-rounder showed why he is still one of the favourites to make it. Against one of the best spinners in the world, in the form of Rashid Khan, Dube played an excellent brand of cricket and if he keeps up with that, the cricketer is likely to earn his ticket for the mega tournament.

3. GT batters look ordinary

Their bowlers did a tough job against Mumbai Indians to help them win as the batters are yet to come to the party. There are a lot of expectations from Gill but he hasn’t delivered so far while the likes of Vijay Shankar and David Miller, who were brilliant last year, too have been extremely ordinary. Things need to change in the GT camp immediately.

Losing skipper Shubman Gill said:

They outplayed us when we were batting, their execution was spot on. We backed ourselves to get a decent score in the powerplay and once we didn’t, we were always playing catch-up. It was unfortunate for us. In T20 you can always talk about 10-15 runs here or there, end of the day it’s about how much they got. On this wicket, we were expecting to chase 190-200. I think it’s a great learning for the bowlers. I think it’s better to have this kind of game early on in the tournament rather than in the middle or late. We always expected to chase 190-200, it was a really good wicket. Felt like we let ourselves down while batting. (On captaincy) Lot of new learnings, new experiences and different things. It’s exciting to captain a team like Gujarat Titans, we’ve made it to the finals in the last couple of years so very exciting.

Winning captain Ruturaj Gaikwad said:

Definitely today’s game was perfect – batting, bowling and fielding, and against a team like Gujarat we needed to come up with a performance like this. In Chennai we are not sure how the wicket will be, we need to do well irrespective of batting or bowling first. Here if we have wickets in hand at the end it helps. Personally felt, Rachin batted brilliantly in the powerplay and took the game away. From there we were always ahead. (on Dube) In terms of confidence, the management and Mahi bhai worked with him personally, his confidence is very high. He knows his roles very well. Definitely he is a big plus for us. I’m impressed with the fielding as well. Maybe one or two youngsters we have extra this year and great effort from Jinks, even in the last game he was running from one end to the other. Fielding is a big tick for us.

POTM Shivam Dube said:

This franchise is different from all others. This franchise is giving me the freedom and I also want to win some matches for them. I worked in that way as well – it is helping me, I know they are going to bowl short balls and I’m ready for that. They want me to go on a higher strike-rate and I want to do that.

Also check: IPL 2024 Points table