The Chennai Super Kings tried till the end but couldn’t prevent themselves from going down to Gujarat Titans in the opening match of the IPL 2023 in Ahmedabad on Friday. After being put in to bat, CSK finished with 173/7, a target that was chased down by the defending champions GT in the final over of the match. If one is to give a cursory glance as to what went wrong with CSK, two aspects come to mind straightaway – they didn’t have enough runs on the board and the failure to put pressure on the GT batters when their bowlers had a chance to.
The kind of start Ruturaj Gaikwad provided, slamming a quickfire half-century – the quickest of his IPL career – CSK should have easily gone in excess of 200, but they were kept quiet from overs 15 until the end when Dhoni’s unbeaten 14 off 7 balls took them to their eventual total. What cost CSK dearly was Shivam Dube’s slow knock of 19 off 18 balls. The all-rounder looked woefully out of touch, unable to bat to ball and getting stuck. He did drill a 97-meter-long six off Mohammed Shami, but perished the very next ball trying to go for a jailbreak shot again.
Dube was awkward against the short ball, mistiming all that he played barring one – twice the ball fell in no-man’s land giving him a lifeline, but his luck finally ran out with Shami bouncing him out. The left-handed batter received the wrath of CSK fans on social media – with some even spamming his comments section on Instagram with lewd messages – who felt he was the prime reason behind CSK’s defeat.
