Chennai Super Kings grabbed their fourth win from five Indian Premier League matches after they beat Royal Challengers Bangalore by 27 runs at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.
Bangalore raised some eyebrows with their team selection, after they chose to leave out Chris Gayle in order to make room for another overseas player, in this case the Australian left-arm seamer Mitchell Starc. Gayle managed only 10 runs in his last outing against Mumbai Indians but he scored 96 three days ago, so the decision to omit him – with no word about an injury to the opener – seemed strange.
The start was delayed by rain but once it started Chennai, who lost the toss, also lost a key man early on after Brendon McCullum was dismissed by spinner Yuzvendra Chahal for four runs, caught by South African youngster Rilee Rossouw.
After that Dwayne Smith and Suresh Raina put on a rapid partnership of 58 runs, with some lusty blows by Smith putting Bangalore on the back foot. However, some fine bowling by Starc and fellow seamer Harshal Patel, pegged them back a little, and Chahal collected another couple of wickets in his spell, including MS Dhoni. The Chennai captain played another scratchy innings, seemingly unable to find the middle of his bat, before he was caught on the boundary by AB de Villiers.
They eventually posted 181-8 after some good lower-order hitting from Faf du Plessis, who looked to have injured his shoulder diving for a run from the last ball of the innings.
Bangalore’s reply started with Rossouw and Manvinder Bisla showing plenty of attacking intent, but they were both dismissed relatively cheaply. Skipper Virat Singh Kohli tried to hold the innings together, making 51 from 42 balls, but a lack of support for him proved their undoing. David Wiese was the only man to get anything close to a decent contribution, scoring 22 and getting out off the last ball of the innings, as Bangalore ended 27 runs short of their target, on 154-8.
They were largely stymied by a quite brilliant bowling performance by the 35-year-old Ashish Nehra, who took 4-10 from his four overs, mixing up his pace superbly and bowling some smart lines to keep the batsmen in check.
Chennai are second in the table behind Rajasthan Royals, who have played a game more, while Bangalore remain rooted to the bottom.
