Chennai Super Kings are nearly out of IPL 2025 after losing to Sunrisers Hyderabad by 5 wickets at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Friday.Batting first, CSK were bowled out for 154. Harshal Patel starred for SRH with a four-wicket haul. Dewald Brevis top-scored for CSK with a quick 42 off 25 balls, while youngster Ayush Mhatre added 30 off 18.
SRH’s chase saw a few hiccups, but Kamindu Mendis and Nitish Reddy stitched an unbeaten 49-run partnership to take them home.
CSK remain at the bottom of the table with just 2 wins from 9 matches, and are on the verge of elimination.
MoM Harshal Patel said, Very pleasing win. We have been trying the same in the 3-4-5 games but some of the pieces have been missing in every single game . For all of it to come together, when we need to win all our games is pretty pleasing. I figured out pretty early, hitting the lengths and keeping it at the sticks was important. It was tough to hit the horizontal bat shots. I wanted the batters to hit me over square-leg and mid-wicket. So, I kept pulling the length back and mixing my pace up. Was trying to bowl length to him (Dhoni). Wasn’t trying to bowl wide. Was one of those variations that you try and bowl something but it doesn’t come off. But glad it came off and went to hand. For me, having my family helps me to switch off. Allows me to look at the bigger picture. It makes me feel that cricket is not the be all and end all of it. When I go on the field, I concentrate on cricket and when I come back off it, I want to be a good father and a good husband.
Pat Cummins said, That was great. Few things came together tonight. Boys played well. Good to see a few smiles. Was pretty clinical. Couple of guys at the top looked like taking the game on. In these conditions, threw Klaasen at the top and Nitish to finish it off. Our record here isn’t great. Be more clinical going forward but pleased with the win.
MS Dhoni, said, We kept losing wickets, and in the first innings the wicket was slightly better and 155 is not a justifiable score, because it wasn’t turning a lot. Yes, after the 8-10th over, it became slightly two-paced when it comes to the fast bowlers, but nothing that was out of the ordinary, I feel we could have put few more runs on the board. Yes, second innings there was a bit of help, our spinners the quality was there and they bowled in the right areas and it was stopping a bit but we were short by 15-20 runs. I think he (Brevis) batted really well and we need something like that in the middle order, where we have slightly struggled when the spinners come in, that’s a time we need to either you do it by batsmanship, where you pick up your areas or try to play the big shot in your area. I feel that’s where we have been lacking and not been really able to dominate or get runs against spinners at good pace in the middle. In a tournament like this, if you have one or two areas where you can plug in the holes it is good, but if majority of your players are not doing well, it becomes very difficult. Because you have to do a few changes, but if majority are doing well then you give those guys that extra few games and if it doesn’t work out than you move onto the next one. But if 4 of them are not performing at the same time, you are bound to make that change, because you can’t just keep on going. Because we are not putting enough runs on the board, because it is essential right now, the game has changed. I am not saying it is always 180-200, but assess the conditions and then look to put the runs on the board.
