Sanju Samson played the bat while Rahul Tewatia picked up three wickets as Rajasthan Royals kicked off their 2020 Dream11 Indian Premier League (IPL) campaign with a 16-run win over Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in Sharjah on Tuesday.
CSK v RR Match 4 IPL 2020
RR lost his first wicket early on when Deepak Chahar did well to hold onto his ball and run past the end of the batsman to fire debutant Yashasvi Jaiswal.
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Sanju Samson came out to join skipper Steve Smith in the middle and since arriving the runs have simply flown. First it was Sam Curran, who went for four and six in the fifth. Then Sanju met Samson Chahar in the final of the power play for a six when RR went over fifty.
CSK brought Ravindra Jadeja into attack and Samson hit two more sixes. RR cranked it up even further in game eight when Samson, bringing his fifty in 19 deliveries, hit three sixes and Smith hit one to score 28 of Piyush Chawla’s first goal.
RR passed her hundred in game nine before targeting Chawla again in the next game, scoring 19 runs to zoom in toward 119 at the end of ten overs. RR scored 10 more runs in the next run.
Lungi Ngidi, who played bowling on the 12th, made the much-needed breakthrough at CSK when Samson was caught in the depths by Chahar after his extravaganza with 32 balls and 74 runs. At the same moment, RR lost another wicket when David Miller was exhausted on his RR debut without facing a delivery.
Meanwhile, Smith finished his fifty and received redress on the 12th and 14th overs.
Chawla then scalped his first wicket when Robin Uthappa got out in the 15th, thanks to a good catch from Faf du Plessis. Sam Curran then tossed a two-wicket to sack Rahul Tewatia and Riyan Parag on the 17th before taking Smith out in the penultimate game.
While CSK tried to keep the RR below 200, Jofra Archer, who scored 27 * from 8 balls, hit 4 sixes in the final to bring his team to 216/7.
It took CSK 217 runs to win and a quick opening stand. Murali Vijay and Shane Watson, despite being vigilant in some overs in power play, provided CSK with one that brought the team over fifty in the first six overs.
However, Tewatia broke the partnership when Watson dropped out in seventh after 33 runs. Shreyas Gopal then flipped over the next when Vijay died for 21. While Sam Curran, who was promoted to get some quick runs, zoomed in to 17 after 5 balls, Tewatia struck twice in game nine to fire Sam Curran and debutant Ruturaj Gaikwad.
Kedar Jadhav hit three fours in one over when CSK broke the 100-run mark in the 12th over. But Jadhav dropped out on the 14th as Sanju Samson resumed his fine night on the cricket field, clinging to a stunning one-handed catch from Tom Curran’s bowling.
CSK had to go big and Faf du Plessis cut open, hitting 3 sixes from Jaydev Unadkat’s fourth over and raising his fifty while pushing CSK close to 160 at the end of the 17th over.
Faf hit two more sixes but got out in the penultimate game for 72 from Archer’s sharp bouncer. MS Dhoni then hit three mighty sixes in the final to bring CSK towards 200, but it was RR that ended up on the winning side.