IPL 2021: What Delhi Taught other Teams about Chasing in Chennai?

Last week we had lot of discussions about chasing in Chennai. But on Tuesday we had a match between Delhi Capitals and Mumbai Indians, where Delhi chased the target in front of a deadly bowling attack.

What KKR Did Wrong against Mumbai?

In the first week of IPL 2021 we had a match between Mumbai and Kolkata in Chennai where Kolkata was chasing. In the last 30 balls Kolkata needed 31 runs to win with 6 wickets in hand. And guess what, Kolkata lost the game.

Kolkata had a good start with Nitish Rana and Shubman Gill having a partnership of 72 runs. And even after Gill lost his wicket, the game was still in KKR’s hands. But the problem was that they just kept losing the wickets with unnecessary shots.

But another wrong thing that KKR did was that they were not rotating their strike in search of boundaries. Let’s have a look at what happened in last 5 overs.

In the last 30 balls Kolkata had 15 dots (including wickets). Well you can’t give 15 dot balls in the death overs in a T20 game. In the 16th over that Krunal Pandya bowled, they scored only one run and lost a crucial wicket of Shakib Al Hasan.

As Bumrah still had overs left, it’s not a right thing to have dot balls in Krunal’s over. They should have tried for a single on every ball, at least.

But it’s all easier said than done. It’s the players who actually know what the situation was at that time.

What Delhi Did Right?

Delhi vs Mumbai was a somewhat similar game to the above one. Delhi was chasing and had a good start with Dhawan and Smith having a partnership. Dhawan batted in a very responsible way and even scored boundaries at the right time.

Let’s get to the last 5 overs of this match. In last 30 balls they needed 37 runs, Dhawan just went to the pavilion and Rishabh Pant was the new batsman in. Delhi had only 7 dot balls in the final 26 deliveries they played. Here is how it happened.

As Dhawan’s wicket fell Pant scored a boundary in the very next over to release some pressure. Then Pant got out but Lalit Yadav kept one end safe and kept rotating the strike with Shimron Hetmyer.

Then came Bumrah’s two no-balls which came as a gift to Delhi. Hetmyer tried for singles and doubles with Lalit doing the same. And I think that’s what made Delhi succeeding in the chase.

Conclusion

In Chennai it’s very difficult for a new batsman to come and score runs. And that’s what Dhoni used to do in Chennai. He used to take the game deep, till the end and targeted the right bowler for boundaries. And that’s the ‘mantra’ to chase in Chennai.