Chennai Super Kings defeated Delhi Daredevils by 13 runs on Monday and moved closer to the IPL play-off in their comeback season.
CSK were put into bat by Shreyas Iyer and Shane Watson blasted a 78 off 40 deliveries and Captain Dhoni played a fantastic knock of 51 off 21 deliveries to take CSK to a mammoth total of 211 for 4 in their 20 overs.
Delhi Daredevils were playing without Gambhir and Rishab Pant scored 79 off 45 balls and Vijay Shanker scored 54 not out off 31 balls but the Daredevils could only manage 198/5 in their 20 overs.
With this defeat, Daredevils are now standing last in this seasons IPL ranking replacing Royal Challengers Bangalore.
It was the IPL debut of CSK pacer Lungi Ngidi and he impressed one and all with figures of 1/26 in his stipulated four overs.
Daredevils kept losing wickets at regular intervals and were 74 for 4 in the 9th over where things looked over for them.
Watson and Plessis made a 102 run opening stand and Plessis scored 33. Dhoni showed his master class in the final 5 overs which went for 74. This was the CSK captains quickest fifty in the IPL.
The Watson-Du Plessis duo produced the desired result for the Super Kings who raced to 100 in just 10.2 overs.
Dhoni came into his element as he hit consecutive sixes of Boult. He hit three sixes in the over and overall he ended up with 5 sixes and 2 fours.
Rayudu fourth-wicket stand of 79 with Dhoni came off just 36 balls.
The Delhi bowlers were all over the place especially the experienced overseas pair of Boult and Plunkett, who leaked 100 runs in seven overs.
Dhoni made as many four changes in the playing eleven, bringing in du Plessis, Karn Sharma, Ngidi and young Kerala pacer KM Asif. Daredevils, on the other hand, did not make any changes after the win against KKR at home.
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