Chennai: Chennai Super Kings (CSK) posted 148 for nine against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in their Indian Premier League (IPL) match at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium here on Monday.
CSK won the toss and elected to bat. They didn’t have a particularly bright start after West Indian Dwayne Smith was bowled for zero by Australian pacer Mitchell Starc.
The other opener, Brendon McCullum (20) also departed early after raising hopes of putting together a partnership with Suresh Raina (52).
But Raina remained unperturbed by the setback and carried on gracefully and compiled a 64-run third-wicket stand with South African Faf du Plessis (24).
The Raina-Plessis partnership didn’t allow the run-scoring momentum to dip. But RCB broke the momentum in the 15th over when pacer Harshal Patel dismissed both du Plessis and Raina.
The twin blow snapped CSK’s initiative and they struggled to force the pace from there on, managing to score only 47 runs in the last five overs.
CSK skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni (29) unleashed some powerful hits to the fence to get their total close to the 150-run mark but even his best efforts looked modest as his team lost wickets at regular intervals to manage just an average total.
