Chennai breeze to win after spinners choke Hyderabad

The anatomy of a disaster is in getting the simple things wrong. On their turf, backed by vociferous fans in a yellow sweltering cauldron, Chennai Super Kings had no reason to digress from the tried and tested approach of administering slow death to batters. Win the toss and the chronology becomes even more apparent. The pitch is generally slow in Chepauk and probably was a tad slower on Friday. 

But the occasion clearly got to Sunrisers Hyderabad who managed a decent start before stuttering in the middle overs to set CSK just 135 to win. They won by seven wickets with eight balls to spare.

Hyderabad still got their start right, sending Abhishek Sharma and hedging their bets on Harry Brook to come good again after his hundred at Eden Gardens. Sharma got to a 26-ball 34 but Brook fell on 18.

Coincidentally, this was also the time the spinners were taking effect. Ravindra Jadeja exploited the two-paced nature of the surface, making the ball grip and turn just enough to cast doubts. On the other end was Maheesh Theekshana, using his carrom balls and low, dipping blockhole deliveries to complement Sri Lankan pacer Matheesha Pathirana's sling-arm variations.

"The wicket is a tiny bit slower, hasn't changed a lot from the previous game and wasn't spinning a lot," said Moeen Ali, who conceded 18 in two overs, during the innings break. Between Jadeja and Theekshana however, CSK gave just 49 in eight overs of spin while breaking SRH's back with four crucial wickets. But more importantly, they stalled SRH's innings to such an extent that they never regained the confidence to go for the big shots towards the end.

CSK were never challenged on that front. In fact, it looked as if they were batting on a different pitch, partially because dew was setting in and more because SRH just didn't have enough quality to threaten them. The thinking was skewed too. Preserving two overs from the disciplined Bhuvneshwar Kumar after he had conceded 13 in his first spell made no sense when SRH were defending such a low total. Then Aiden Markram brought himself ahead of Mayank Markande and Washington Sundar and Devon Conway promptly scored consecutive boundaries off his gentle off-spin. The left-arm to left-hand matchup was straight up Conway's alley as he then milked Marco Jansen for 23 runs in the sixth over.

None of those five boundary hits were a result of brute force. Conway first shuffled across his stumps to ramp Jansen wide of backward square leg for a four. Next ball was fuller, so this time he lapped it over the same fielder for another four. Jansen pulled his length but Conway top-edged it and Jansen's pace was enough to carry the ball over the boundary for a six. Alarmed, Jansen tried a back-of-length ball but Conway opened the face of his bat to guide it past the wicketkeeper for a four. Last ball was slightly wider and Conway cut it past short third man, taking the equation from 98 off 90 to 75 from 84.

CSK never looked back from there. Conway reached his fifty in 33 balls, and even though he was involved in an unfortunate run out of Ruturaj Gaikwad after Umran Malik got a fingertip on his straight drive, he anchored the chase perfectly for CSK despite some late wickets.

The game was won much earlier though. How a team gets to just 134 after scoring 76 in the first 10 overs can be bewildering in an age where some of the cleanest strikers of the game are hogging the limelight but at Chepauk, T20 is played differently. Here, only the most technically capable batters survive and thrive.

But SRH didn't back their Indians, chopping and changing the batting order, demoting Mayank Agarwal to No 6 and trusting Aiden Markram and Heinrich Klaasen to come good. But in doing so, they flopped in the game of staying ahead of the acceptable strike rate curve.

Only two sixes were hit in the entire innings. Between their No 3 to No 7, no batter had a strike rate of more than 106.25. The rotation of strike had come to a grinding halt as batters couldn't find the gaps. Frustrated, Agarwal was stumped in no time. Till Sundar, the local boy, backed away and hit Tushar Deshpande for a lofted boundary, SRH were dangerously close to not getting even six runs per over. In the end, adding 32 runs in the last 30 balls from 102/5 was as good as giving the match to CSK on a silver platter.