A Riveting Weekend

It has been already a week since the Indian Premier League has started , and it could not have been more exciting . The 2 matches today were a perfect way to end the week as Chennai faced Kolkata and Bangalore took on Mumbai .

What started out well for Kolkata in the first innings was their good bating performance . Scoring a healthy 171 in a slowish pitch favouring bowlers meant that Chennai had their work cut out .

But the one whose work was hard was the Kolkata bowler’s , who faced batsman after batsman making runs comfortably against them. Top 3 of the CSK batting order crossed 30 , while Jadeja hit a blistering fast 22 off 8 , to get the match to the final over , with only 4 runs required .

Sunil Narine took the responsibility , and even got Sam Curran out on the first ball , and beating Thakur completely on the 2nd . It was on the edge at 4 of 4 . But Thakur kept his nerves and made a sensible drive to fetch 3 runs , almost sealing the deal with 3 balls to go . The next 2 balls Narine showed why he is a world class spinner , for Jadeja missed the first , and was completely hoodwinked by the former to get out , leg — before — wicket .

Deepak Chahar , not much of a batsman , made sure he got some contact on the ball and easily ran for a single , winning the game . The second game was , in stark contrast , the opposite . In a complete shocking turn of events , Bangalore showed a completely dominant game , especially with their bowling .

Coming back from complaints on his captaincy , Virat Kohli scored a stable 50 to anchor the innings while Maxwell scored his in a faster manner . These scores , adding the 30 by Bharat set a competitive target of 166 to the Mumbai Indians . Not large , but defendable . But with the exception of captain Rohi Sharma , no one on the team made a meaningful contribution , with only the captain and de Kock even crossing double digits .

Bangalore’s bowlers stepped up when they needed to , lead by Harshall Patel , who took a hat trick , including that of the danger man Pollard . They folde up at 111 and 11 bowls to spare .

If the first game of the day was a see saw , the second was a complete bowling masterclass , which showed RCB as legitimate and threatening title contenders , and I am even hopeful that they win this one , before Virat Kohli steps down from captaincy .

This IPL seems to be going smoothly in terms of logistics , and spectacular in terms of the games , and I am positive we will see the same trend going forwards . Have a good week !