Chennai Super Kings were pushed to the brink of elimination after losing their seventh match by 13 runs to Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL in Pune on Wednesday.
Invited to bat, RCB rode on Mahipal Lomror’s 27-ball 42 and useful contributions from Virat Kohli (30), Faf de Plessis (38), Rajat Patidar (21 off 15 balls) and Dinesh Karthik (26 off 17 balls) to post 173 for 8.
CSK were then restricted to 160 for 8 in 20 overs, despite a fifty by Devon Conway (56) at the top.
For CSK, Maheesh Theekshana (3/27) took three wickets in the 19th over, while a fit-again Mooen Ali (2/28) scalped two wickets and Dwaine Pretorius (1/42) snapped one.
While, Glenn Maxwell (2/22) and Harshal Patel (3/35) took two wickets to emerge as the best bowlers for RCB.
With the win RCB moved to fourth position on the points table, while CSK were pushed closer to the brink of elimination as they remained at the penultimate spot.
Now to qualify for the playoffs, MS Dhoni’s Chennai Super Kings have a mountain to climb and they need luck in abundance as well.
CSK are having a terrible IPL 2022 season. It all began with Dhoni stepping down as captain two days ahead of IPL 2022 and giving the responsibility to Ravindra Jadeja. But with 6 matches lost out of 8, Jadeja felt pressure that he was unable to cope with and handed back the captaincy to MSD.
There are many talks since then about things not being as cool as they used to be at CSK and on the field, the results are not heartening too.
CSK have 4 games remaning and they will hope to win all 4 to ensure they stay afloat in tournament, even is so slightly. More importantely, these wins will be morale booster and will help Chennai finish the tournament on a high.