Abu Dhabi: Disciplined bowling and Jose Butler’s half-century helped the Rajasthan Royals (RR) thrashed Chennai Super Kings (CSK) by 7 wickets in the 37th match of the IPL 2020 at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium, here on Monday.
CSK won the toss and opted to bat first. CSK’s decision to bat first backfired as the team could only manage a paltry 125/5 after 20 overs. Ravindra Jadeja (35 off 30 balls), was the top scorer for CSK followed by MS Dhoni (28 off 28 balls) and Sam Curran (22 off 25 balls).The Rajasthan spinners Rahul Tewatia (1/18) and Shreyas Gopal (1/14) applied the squeeze in the middle overs, and Jofra Archer (1/20) bowled the death overs with great precision.
Chasing a small target for the victory, RR were off to a bad start. They lost the wickets of Ben Stokes (19 off 11 balls), Robin Uthappa (4 off 9 balls), Sanju Samson (0 off 3 balls)) in the powerplay with 31 runs on the board. After a Shaky start, Jos Buttler (70 off 48 balls) and Steve Smith (26 off 34 balls) stood rock solid and joined hands for a good 4th wicket partnership. They added 98 runs from 78 deliveries to guide Rajasthan Royals to an impressive 7-wicket win over Chennai Super Kings.
Rajasthan have defeated Chennai for the second time in the season. Rajasthan moved up to 5th in the points table with a win. At the same time, this is Chennai’s 7th defeat in the season.