Chennai Super King’s newly appointed captain Ruturaj Gaikwad becomes the first CSK captain in 5 years to score an IPL fifty. Gaikwad achieved this feat during the CSK vs KKR clash on April 8 in Chepauk.
Ruturaj Gaikwad Scored an Unbeaten 67 in CSK vs KKR Clash
With a day ahead for the IPL 2024 start, CSK named Ruturaj Gaikwad as their new captain for the season replacing the legend MS Dhoni. As a captain, Ruturaj made an impressive start with a couple of victories in his first two games but as a player, Gaikwad struggled a lot.
In his first four matches, Gaikwad scored 15(vs RCB), 46(vs GT), 1(vs DC), and 26(vs SRH) and struggled to find his mojo back.
But in the third home game of the season, which was played against KKR, Gaikwad scored a steady 67 runs off 58 balls and paved the way for CSK’s victory. Though Ruturaj maintained a poor strike rate of 115.52, his knock is expected to give him a strong mindset for the upcoming games.
Speaking on the match, CSK won the toss and elected to bowl first where Phil Salt and Narine opened the inning on behalf of KKR.
Chennai Super Kings’ opening bowler Tushar Deshpande dismissed Phil Salt for GOLDEN Duck and made an early breakthrough. Notably, Phil becomes the fifth KKR batter to be dismissed on the first ball of a match.
Though CSK made an early wicket, KKR’s batter posed a great threat for the CSK. But Ravindra Jadeja dismissed dangerous Narine and Angkrish Raghuvanshi for 27 and 24 runs respectively and announced his return in style.
Following the duo’s dismissal, KKR struggled to build a partnership and lost their wickets to CSK bowlers at a regular interval. Tushar Deshpande on the other hand, dismissed KKR’s dangerous duo Rinku Singh and Russell for 9 and 10 runs respectively and restricted KKR to score 137 runs for 9 wickets loss at the end of 20 overs.
Rachin Ravindra and Ruturaj Gaikwad opened the inning for CSK to chase down the 137 runs target. Vaibhav Arora made an early breakthrough and dismissed Ravindra for just 15 runs.
Following his dismissal, Daryl Mitchell and Shivam Dube scored 25(19) and 28(18) runs respectively and moved CSK to a steady side.
Though CSK lost a couple of wickets at one end, their skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad made a steady inning and scored 67 runs off 58 deliveries and paved the way for CSK to register their third victory of the season.
Chennai Super Kings will play their next match of the season against Mumbai Indians on April 14 in Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai.
