Ajinkya Rahane played a brilliant innings of 71 not out to set up a win for Chennai Super Kings on Sunday night
Ajinkya Rahane scored a superb unbeaten 71 as Chennai Super Kings (CSK) crushed Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) by a huge margin of 47 runs in their Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 match on Sunday night at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata.
Ajinkya Rahane continued with his splendid batting form as the right-handed former India batsman and captain hit five sixes and six fours to make 71 not out from just 29 deliveries batting at number three, helping his new IPL team this season, Chennai Super Kings to a huge total of 235/4 in their 20 overs.
Ajinkya Rahane was not the only star performer with the bat for Chennai Super Kings as Ruturaj Gaikwad made 35 from 20 balls with three sixes and two fours to make a strong start while his opening partner Devon Conway hit 56 from 40 balls with three sixes and four boundaries to help Chennai Super Kings make a strong start.
Chennai Super Kings all-rounder Shivam Dube later played a brutal knock as the left-handed batsman hit 50 from just 21 balls hitting five sixes and two fours to record yet another half century in this IPL. Towards the end of the innings, Chennai Super Kings all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja made 18 from just eight balls with the help of two sixes asz MS Dhoni remained unbeaten on two.
Chasing an improbable total of 236 runs to win, Kolkata Knight Riders lost their opening batsmen Narayan Jagadeesan and Sunil Narine for without any significant score on the board. However, there was no change in the fortunes for KKR with the bat as Venkatesh Iyer struggled to find the ball and made 20 runs from 20 balls and captain Nitish Rana made 27 from 20 balls with 46 boundaries and a six.
However, Jason Roy played a strong innings of 61 from 10 to 6 balls hitting five sixes and five boundaries to Play a lone hand for Kolkata Knight Riders who are also well supported by Rinku Singh, but the left-handed Indian batsmen scoring 53 not out from 33 balls with the help of four sixes and three fours.
KKR never looked to chase down the total of 236 as they only looked to play their 20 overs and try to keep the difference of net run rate as small as possible since they were facing a big defeat.
For Chennai Super Kings, Tushar Deshpande and Matheesha Pathirana took two wickets each whereas the other bowlers in Prakash Singh, Moeen Ali, Ravindra Jadeja and Maheesh Theekshana claimed one wicket each.
