A couple of good knocks by Ayush Mhatre and Dewald Brevis following a poor start as Chennai Super Kings continued to flounder in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 as they went down to Rajasthan Royals in an inconsequential match at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Tuesday night.
With Mhatre scoring 43 off 20 balls at the top and Brevis hitting 42 off 25 balls, CSK were looking good to reach a total closer to 200. But Akash Madhwal claimed 3-29, including the prized wicket of Brevis, and the five-time IPL winners could manage only 187/8 in their 20 overs. Yudhvir Singh Charak bagged 3-47 for Rajasthan Royals.
It was a good total, Brevis' innings was really nice, taking risks, that's the phase we want to improve...the run rate was up but we lost one or two more wickets at the start.
Dhoni thought it was a defendable total, but Rajasthan Royals' 14-year-old opener Vaibhav Suryavanshi had other ideas. He blazed to a 33-ball 57 while Yashasvi Jaiswal (36) and skipper Sanju Samson (41) contributed vital runs to help Rajasthan Royals reach 188/4 and romp to a six-wicket win with 17 balls to spare. Dhruv Jurel struck an unbeaten 12-ball 31 towards the end to guide them to a comprehensive victory.
CSK has been trying to groom young players after they crashed out of contention, but Dhoni said they need to learn how to read the game.
They have to try for the consistency, but if you are looking for 200-plus strike rate then consistency is hard to get...they have the ability to hit sixes at any stage ... don't take pressure, when the expectations rise...learn from senior players and coaching staff...it's about reading the game...this would be my advice to all the youngsters who have done well.
His counterpart Sanju Samson at least had the satisfaction of ending a poor season on a winning note. Samson had missed a majority of matches in this edition with an injury, but he was back in the squad for the final game and made a vital contribution in the middle overs. They went in without many senior players but came up with a good performance against a struggling side.
It feels good. To be honest, we were thinking about setting a target, but I felt there's no hiding in this game, let's go out and chase it and prove a point. We have a young bowling attack, missing Jofra, Sandeep Sharma...lots of promise for the future. Madhwal did not play a lot of games; he has been working closely with Shane Bond, doing a lot of spot bowling, and he has got the results now.
RR ended the season with four wins in 14 matches, and Samson said they will sit down soon and review the season.
It's hard to see why we had such a bad season. We will sit down after a couple of weeks to review what went wrong and come back stronger
The only positive point for RR this season was the sensational performance by young Suryavanshi.
I don't have words for him. Today, when the middle overs were going on, he was smart in picking his options, it's a stunning combination, having that potential and game awareness.
Brief scores:
Chennai Super Kings 187/8 in 20 overs (Ayush Mhatre 43, Dewald Brevis 42; Akash Madhwal 3-29, Yudhvir Singh Charak 3-47) lost to Rajasthan Royals 188/4 in 17.1 overs (Vaibhav Suryavanshi 57, Sanju Samson 41, Yashasvi Jaiswal 36; Ravichandran Ashwin 2-41, Anshul Kamboj 1-2) by six wickets.
