CSK vs KKR: Knight Riders defeated Super Kings by 6 wickets and remained alive for the playoffs

Nitish Rana and Rinku Singh revived the Kolkata Knight Riders' run chase as Chennai Super Kings desperately searched for a breakthrough in the IPL 2023 encounter at Chepauk on Sunday. The pair added 99 runs for the fourth wicket after early blows by Deepak Chahar had reduced KKR to 33/3 in 4.3 overs. Earlier, Varun Chakravarthy and Sunil Narine helped KKR restrict CSK at 144/6 in 20 overs after opting to bat. Ravindra Jadeja and Shivam Dube added 68 runs for the sixth wicket. Dube returned unbeaten on 48 off 34 balls. KKR won the match and made themselves available for the playoff race. Read the Match report of the CSK vs KKR clash and share your thoughts in the comments.

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CSK vs KKR: IPL 2023 Match Report

Chennai Super Kings won the toss & decided to bat first. Ruturaj Gaikwad and Conway started the proceedings with the bat while Vaibhav Arora started with the new ball. Gaikwad got off to a fiery start with a couple of boundaries. Conway on the other side, took time to settle in according to the pitch. Varun Chakaravarathy came up with a huge wicket of Gaikwad in the fourth over. He sent Gaikwad home for 17. His wicket brought Rahane onto the pitch. Conway & Rahane reconstructed the inning but Varun Chakaravarthy came up with another answer for that. He dismissed Rahane for 16 runs in the eighth over as Chennai Super Kings lost their second wicket at the score of 61 runs.

Shardul Thakur scalped the wicket of Devon Conway in the 10th over and CSK fell into complete trouble. Conway failed to boost his inning and lost his wicket for 30 runs. Sunil Narine then sent Raydu back to the dugout in the next over for only 4 runs. Narine gave another blow by dismissing Moeen Ali in the same over. Shivam Dube came and Jadeja took charge and tried to construct a partnership.

Shivam Dube smacked some big hits while Jadeja gave him support with singles and doubles. Dube missed out on his half-century by only 2 runs as he didn't get the strike in the last over for too long. Jadeja couldn't boost his inning and lost his wicket after scoring 20 runs in 24 deliveries. MS Dhoni came into the middle but KKR bowled brilliantly in the last two overs which helped them to restrict CSK from scoring boundaries. Dube returned with 48* while Varun & Narine ended their spell with two wickets each. Shardul and Vaibhav got one wicket each which was enough to restrict CSK from getting past 150 on a sluggish pitch of Chepauk.

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CSK vs KKR: IPL 2023 Match Report

Kolkata had a poor start during the chase. Gurbaz (1) lost his wicket in the third over to Chahar who was a little bit lucky as Deshpande took a brilliant catch at the boundary line. Roy (12) showed positive intent but he too departed early. Chahar gave a brilliant possible start to CSK by dismissing 3 top-order batters of KKR. He also dismissed Venkatesh Iyer (9) in his third over inside the powerplay.

Rinku Singh and skipper Nitish Rana tried to start a partnership and they successfully did so. They slowly progressed toward the target. There was a chance to dismiss one of the batters but Pathirana dropped the catch. It would have shifted the momentum once again in favour of Chennai Super Kings. Rinku Singh was scoring boundaries for fun as he got used to the pitch. Later, Rana joined the party with some boundaries too. Both the batters completed their half-centuries and completed a 99-run partnership. However, Moeen Ali broke the partnership by dismissing Rinku Singh (54) for a runout.

It didn't matter for KKR as they were too close for the victory. CSK's spin magic failed to do wonders in their home ground and it went in favour of Kolkata Knight Riders. KKR won the match by 6 wickets and kept their hopes alive for the playoffs.