Jadeja and Gaekwad star as Chennai hand Kolkata first defeat in IPL
Ravindra Jadeja (L) celebrates with his teammate after taking the wicket of Venkatesh Iyer at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on Monday night. AFP
Jadeja strangled the batting power of Kolkata to 137-9 with 3-18 in the middle overs, and Gaekwad cruised Chennai to 141-3 in 17.4 overs for their third home win.
"Jaddu (Jadeja) always comes in after the power play with momentum in the spin department," Gaikwad said of his man of the match performer. "With this team, I don't really need to tell things to anyone. Everyone's in a great head space, Mahi (M.S. Dhoni) bhai and (Stephen) Fleming are still around to take those calls," Gaikwad added.
Gaikwad, who was handed the captaincy by veteran Dhoni ahead of the season, hammered nine boundaries including the winning hit to make it three in three at home this season.
Gaekwad, who had only 88 runs in the previous four games, scored an unbeaten 67 off 58 balls and marshalled the chase with a 70-run second wicket stand with Daryl Mitchell, who made 25.
Mitchell was clean bowled by Sunil Narine, but impact substitute Shivam Dube clubbed three sixes and a boundary in his quickfire 28 off 18 balls.
The thumping seven-wicket win lifted Chennai among the top four with three wins in five games.
Kolkata couldn’t capitalise on a blazing power play of 56-1 by Narine and Raghuvanshi after Phil Salt was out to a catch first ball off fast bowler Tushar Deshpande.
Narine smashed two sixes and three boundaries in a 20-ball 27 and Raghuvanshi made an 18-ball 24 before Jadeja claimed their wickets among three in his first eight balls.
Gaekwad’s plan to turn back to his seamers in the death overs worked well as Kolkata lost four wickets for just 28 runs in the last four overs.
Mustafizur Rahman claimed both of his wickets in the last over when his cutters conceded only two runs, while Deshpande finished with 3-33.
Agencies
