Chennai Super Kings arrived in Lucknow on Friday clinging to faint play-off hopes; they left with a bruising seven-wicket defeat, 20 balls unused, and one of their standout bowlers nursing figures he will want to forget in a hurry.
Anshul Kamboj, reliable all season, was carted for 63 in 2.4 overs. His first set – the third of the innings – cost a manageable 11. His second, though, disappeared for 28 as Mitchell Marsh drilled four straight sixes before a full-blooded drive ricocheted off the bowler’s boot and a scrambled four closed the over. Kamboj was hidden until the 17th, by which point CSK had only 23 to defend. Nicholas Pooran, sensing blood, reeled off 6, 6, 6, 6 to end the contest.
“The guy has been bowling so well throughout the season, you’re bound to have a bad day,” Ambati Rayudu said on ESPNcricinfo’s TimeOut show. “It’s like, it’s like getting a duck. You’re getting a golden duck.”
Rayudu felt most of the deliveries were serviceable; Marsh (90 from 38) and Pooran (32* from 17) just happened to middle almost everything. From Lucknow’s perspective the assault was a reminder of what might have been had their middle order located this touch earlier in the tournament.
“See, that’s where it sucks to be a bowler, I have to say,” former New Zealand quick Mitchell McClenaghan added on the same programme. “Like a batter can be betting terribly and just go sweet as, hit one straight up… You got Mitch Marsh, who’s been in good form. You’ve got LSG out of the competition. So you’ve got a man who doesn’t mind if he gets out because it doesn’t mean anything to the competition. So he’s just swinging.”
LSG’s chase of 177 never really wobbled. The visiting seamers stuck almost exclusively to a back-of-a-length plan – a decent option on most decks, yet here the ball skidded nicely on to the bat. Marsh, tall and strong, simply muscled it flat into the stands; Pooran offered the flourish once the equation was joke-small.
Rayudu argued CSK lacked an on-field safety net when things unravelled. A year ago MS Dhoni might have wandered over, slowed the game, or suggested a wide yorker – the basics, but they matter.
“I feel the CSK side, when you look at them at the ground, they’re not too many smart heads, experienced heads there,” Rayudu said. “Players who could just control the game, who can just go and give [Kamboj] a pat saying that, ‘boss, just wait, hang on for ten seconds, tie your laces up’.”
He pointed at wicketkeeper Sanju Samson – able organiser but stationed behind the stumps, a long way from a mid-over huddle – and wondered whether a casual question might have sparked a change of plan: cutters into the pitch, perhaps, or a fuller length looking for toe-crushing yorkers.
CSK still hold a mathematical chance of qualifying, though net-run-rate has taken a kicking. Kamboj will need to regroup quickly; short memories help fast bowlers as much as any trick variation. As Rayudu put it, “You’re bound to have a bad day.” The challenge is making sure the next one isn’t it.
