Using the bat like a sledgehammer, Robin Uthappa and Shivam Dube smashed Royal Challengers Bangalore bowlers all around the DY Patil Stadium to help defending champions Chennai Super Kings post their second plus-200 total and the IPL season’s highest team score here on Tuesday.
Chennai Super Kings, put in to bat by RCB skipper Faf du Plessis, posted 216 for 4 with opener Uthappa making 88 in 50 balls, laced with nine sixes and four fours. Left-handed Dube remained unbeaten on 95 off 46 balls, punctuated with five sixes and eight fours.
At the time of going to press, RCB were 86-4 after 10 overs.
Slow start by CSK
Smarting from four defeats in their first four games, but coming with a 18-9 record against their southern rivals, Super Kings started slowly making 35 for 1 in Powerplay and then 60-2 at the halfway stage.
Thereafter there was mayhem as first Dube and then Uthappa simply tore into the rival team’s attack with ferocious hitting, which helped CSK add a staggering 156 runs in the last 10 overs. Their partnership was worth 165.
The previous highest team total was Delhi Capitals’ 215 against Kolkata Knight Riders at the Brabourne Stadium, which was overtaken by CSK by one run. They themselves had made 210, also at the Brabourne Stadium, only to lose by six wickets to Lucknow Super Giants on March 31.
Things looked going the RCB way in the first seven overs when they reduced CSK to 36 for 2. Josh Hazzlewood was miserly in his first spell of two overs for six runs for the wicket of out-of-form opener Ruturaj
Then one-down Moeen Ali was brilliantly run out by a superb piece of fielding by Suyash Prabhudessai at backward point. Uthappa, biding his time at the other end, was joined by Dube and the two first started milking runs before the latter opened out by striking spinners Glenn Maxwell, Wanindu Hasaranga and Shahbaz Ahmed for his first three sixes.
Then Uthappa followed suit by carting Maxwell with identical leg side heaves for three sixes in the 13th over, the third of the Australian, to open the floodgates. With 45 runs coming between overs 11 and 13, CSK were on a roll. Uthappa completed his second fifty of the season in 33 balls, followed by Dube in three fewer balls.
Sizzling Uthappa
Hazlewood came back for his second spell, but even he couldn’t stem the run flow as Uthappa swung him for another leg side six. The batsman was also lucky to be caught off a no-ball when on 81 before finally departing, caught in the deep off Hasaranga. Dube carried on in same vein to remain unconquered at the end after Hasaranga dismissed CSK skipper Ravindra Jadeja to complete his expensive spell with two wickets off three overs.
