CSK struggled to maintain momentum and finished at 184/8 in the chase of 195.
Asked to bat first, SRH posted 194/9, led by explosive half-centuries from Abhishek Sharma (59 off 22 balls) and Heinrich Klaasen (59 off 39 balls). Despite CSK's bowlers—Jamie Overton (3/37) and Anshul Kamboj (3/22)—restricting them late, the total proved sufficient.
Chasing the target, CSK struggled to maintain momentum and finished at 184/8. Matthew Short was their top scorer with 34 runs, while Eshan Malinga starred for SRH with a match-winning spell (3-29).
After the loss, CSK skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad noted that at one point, he expected a target of 220-230, but credited his bowlers for pulling it back to under 200.
“I felt, how the powerplay went, bowling-wise for us, anything I was looking around 220 or 230, but to pull back 30 runs, it was a great bowling effort and on this type of ground, on this type of pitch, any day I would have taken (target) less than 200,” Gaikwad said at the post-match presentation.
Reflecting on CSK’s chase, Gaikwad rued how quickly things slipped away despite being in a strong position at the halfway stage.
“Yes, as you rightly said, it was just about 80 runs needed in 10 overs and from there I think it was just about building a couple of partnerships, and then making sure that the opposition is not in the game and under pressure as well. But I think couple of overs after that really changed the momentum. We scored just 4 runs in the next 2 overs after the 10-over mark. So I think that really helped them, and obviously, we knew that once we come into the death overs, it's going to be tough chasing 12s or 13s an over, so credit to them, they bowled really well in the back-end,” he added.
Gaikwad mentioned that the bowling unit has stepped up over the last three consecutive games, praising the efforts of Jamie Overton, Gurjapneet Singh, Noor Ahmad, and especially Anshul Kamboj.
“I think it's been three successive games that the bowling unit has been doing really well. Even today, everyone just stepped up after the powerplay. Even powerplay, I felt, Abhishek batted brilliantly. He took on the bowlers. We didn't give away any loose deliveries, just some really good cricket. Hats off to that. But even after that once we got that momentum, I think we cashed on it really well and everyone chipped in,” the captain remarked.
“Jamie (Overton), Gurjapneet (Singh), Noor (Ahmad) and even Anshul (Kamboj) to top it off at the end. I think everyone did a good job. (Anshul Kamboj has been a shining light) He's working really hard on his bowling, especially his death bowling. I think you very rarely get bowlers who are really clear and tell the captain, okay, I got this, I know what to do. These are my plans. So I think I'm really glad to have him in our side. As you said, he's doing really well. He's improving day by day,” he concluded.