Credit: BCCI/IPL
Faf du Plessis came up with a match-winning knock after early collapse as Chennai Super Kings defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad by two wickets in a thrilling qualifier at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on May 22, 2018. With this, CSK entered the final of IPL 2018 in their comeback season after serving a two-year ban from the league.
Batting first, SRH posted a total of 139 runs for the loss of seven wickets in their 20 overs. The top order couldn’t get much runs but Carlos Brathwaite guided SRH to a competitive total with an unbeaten 43* runs off 29 balls, hitting one four and four sixes. For CSK, Dwayne Bravo took two wickets, while Shardul Thakur, Ravindra Jadeja, Lungi Ngidi and Deepak Chahar scalped a wicket each.
Faf du Plessis came as a saviour after CSK’s poor start
Chasing the winning start, CSK had a disastrous start as they were reduced to 24/3 inside the powerplay. The wickets still kept falling regularly even after powerplay but Faf du Plessis was taking the innings further from one end. Along with him, Suresh Raina got out after scoring a quickfire 22(13) runs, hitting four boundaries. CSK lost their eighth wicket at the score of 113 runs with 27 runs required from the last 13 balls with just two wickets in hand. After that, Du Plessis ended the over with a boundary against Brathwaite and now CSK needed 23 runs from the last two overs.
In the 19th over, Faf du Plessis and Shardul Thakur collected 17 runs with Thakur smashing 15 runs, hitting three fours. Now, with six runs needed from the last six balls, Faf du Plessis smashed a six straight over Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s head as CSK clinched a thrilling victory after early collapse and entered the IPL final in their comeback season. Du Plessis remained unbeaten on 67*(42) runs, hitting five fours and four sixes. Eventually, CSk also defeated SRH in the final and ended up lifting their third IPL title in 2018.
