Exactly halfway through IPL 2018 and Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s Chennai Super Kings sit on top of the standings with six wins in eight matches. The latest victory coming against Delhi Daredevils in Pune on Monday night with Shane Watson and the skipper himself scoring big runs and posting 211/4 on the board.
Delhi, playing without Gautam Gambhir once again, fell short by 13 runs as they slumped back onto the last position in the standings after the defeat.
Both teams now have six more matches left this season and while CSK look solid enough to march on, Delhi’s chances of making it to the play-offs from here look very slim.
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On Monday in Pune, Delhi skipper Shreyas Iyer put CSK into bat first and the first half of the innings was completely dominated by Shane Watson who smashed 78 off 40. After he fell in the 14th over, MS Dhoni collaborated with Ambati Rayudu to ensure the team got past the 200-run mark.
Dhoni in fact smashed five sixes and two boundaries in his innings of 51, scoring his second fastest fifty in the IPL, off 22 balls. In the last five overs, Dhoni helped add 74 runs to the team’s total.
His personal tally in the 11 seasons so far is now 3556 runs, which puts him ahead of Gautam Gambhir as the IPL captain with most runs.
On the CSK front, Ambati Rayudu retained his orange cap, scoring 41 runs in 24 balls and the top batsmen’s standings in the league now feature three Chennai players in the top 6. Apart from Rayudu, MS Dhoni and Shani Watson both feature in the list with tallies of 280+ in the 8 matches so far.
Delhi Daredevils’ Rishabh Pant too features on the list, placed fourth with 306 runs so far this season. In fact, he’s one of only four players to have breached the 300-run mark in IPL 2018.
After the game though, both Pant and Dhoni were caught by the cameras discussing strategies. Both keepers having scored half-centuries for their teams on the night.
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