It was the wicket-keeper’s night out there at M Chinnaswamy Stadium. Firstly, it was the show from Parthiv Patel, which helped RCB to put a good tally on the board. And then, it was MS Dhoni, who almost pulled out an unbelievable victory for Chennai Super Kings in difficult conditions.
MS Dhoni, who took the onus of finishing the game on himself, played a magical knock for the team. He scored those boundaries with ease before boiling it down to 2 runs off 1 ball. Shockingly, he missed the final delivery and Parthiv Patel was smart in hitting stumps to catch Shardul short of the crease.
Umesh Yadav bowled a brilliant slower ball – Parthiv Patel
Speaking in the press conference, Parthiv Patel quoted that they have never expected that MS Dhoni would leave the last ball, who is in such a wonderful form with the bat. Revealing the plan, he quoted that they wanted to bowl a slower delivery outside off and hoping MS Dhoni to hit through the off-side.
He further explained that it is tough to take a couple of runs on the off-side as the ground is short while on the leg-side, it would be easy for MS Dhoni to take a couple. But, surprisingly, MS Dhoni missed the ball, which gave him a chance to hit the wickets.
“We honestly wanted him (Dhoni) to hit through the off-side on the shorter side of the ground. If he had hit it on the leg-side, there were two runs because I don’t think the way he runs, there was any chance of stopping those two,” an elated Patel said at the post-match press conference.
“So we wanted (Umesh) to bowl slower and outside the off-stump and surprisingly he missed it. I wasn’t expecting him to miss it but surprisingly he missed it,” he said.
MS Dhoni almost won the game – Parthiv Patel
Speaking of the dimensions of the ground, Parthiv quoted that it is always tough to defend the total at M Chinnaswamy Stadium. So, they wanted to bowl as many dot deliveries as possible to make it tough for them in the end.
“Playing in Bangalore or Mumbai, you know that 70 runs in the last five overs is gettable. You need at least have 80-90 runs to get in last five overs to defend. So, we wanted to squeeze him. “We wanted to bowl as many dot balls to him as possible, and put pressure on other batsmen because everybody knows how MS is. He wanted the game to go down to last three-four overs and he almost won the game,” said Patel.
All in all, it was a brilliant game of cricket between Chennai Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bangalore. The game will go down as one of the thrillers in the history of Indian Premier League.