Sanju Samson and Steve Smith led Rajasthan Royals to a 16-run victory over Chennai Super Kings in the opening fixture of the Indian Premier League season.
CSK started the 13th season of the IPL
with a five-wicket win over Mumbai Indians, however, they finished comfortably
second in Sharjah on Tuesday.
Samson and Captain Smith shared a 121-run
second-wicket stand for Rajasthan when they gave CSK a target of 217.
If CSK has won, it was the most successful
chase in the history of the IPL.
However, despite a strong partnership
between Shane Watson and Murali Vijay on 56 and Faf du Plessis on 72 off 37
balls, he never came close to doing so.
MS Dhoni's three sixes in the final over
saw the record for most runs scored in an IPL match when the teams combined for
33 runs.
Rajdhani's comfortable victory did not
come on these cards when opener Yashsu Jaiswal fell for six in the third over.
But Samson (74) and Smith (69) showed the
balance of the match strongly in favor of Rajasthan.
Samson was in devastating form as he reduced
his attack against CS, four and nine sixes signaling a devastating 32-ball
chance at the crease.
Longi Ngidi dismissed Samson when a wide
delivery from outside hit a deep cover and David Miller was later dismissed’ on
two balls.
Smith kept the innings together until he
had 10 balls to spare, with Jofra Archer scoring 30 in the final over.
Rahul Teutia dealt with the dangerous
Watson, who had 33 sixes, and sent the plane after his leg fell into the
stumps.
Thankfully, Gopal stumped Murali (21) off
five balls to Teutia in a continuous supply of Sam Kran and Raturaj Gaikwad.
With the departure of Kedar Jadhav (22),
the experienced duo of Du Plessis and Dhoni is no longer on the shoulders.
Du Plessis did a great job of lifting,
with three sixes in 17 giving CSK an extraordinary hope that the competition
would end when the archer bouncer performed his fastball.
Smith is showing his class
Smith suffered a headache during the
Australian team's recent limited-overs tour of England and did well, scoring his a first half-century in any format since February.
Archer added important runs
Archer's incredible final-over
contribution ensured that a large number of CSKs were out of his reach and he
then developed a superb bouncer to take his form off Du Plessis and Put the
competition on the bed.
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