Ravindra Jadeja made a strong comeback

Ravindra Jadeja delivered his first-ever all-round performance of the IPL 2024 season, which enabled the 35-year-old player to secure the Player of the Match recognition.

Bowlers Shine

Following a series of high-scoring matches in the 17th Indian Premier League (IPL), it has been refreshing to see the bowlers making a comeback. In five out of the last six matches leading up to the Sunday game between Punjab Kings (PBKS) and Chennai Super Kings (CSK), the scores were below 160.

The PBKS-CSK match, which was played in the afternoon as part of a doubleheader, followed the trend as Punjab once again restricted Chennai to a score below 170 after winning the toss and choosing to field. In a match at Chepauk the previous week, Punjab successfully chased down a target of 163 runs with over two overs to spare, thanks to impressive performances by Rilee Rossouw and Jonny Bairstow. Even so, in the recent match, it was Chennai's turn to fight back with their bowling, preventing Punjab from reaching the target and avoiding a season double.

The 28-run victory on Sunday not only ended CSK's five-match losing streak against PBKS but also propelled them two places up to the third position on the IPL 2024 points table. It revived their campaign, which had suffered from three defeats in their previous four outings, including consecutive losses against Lucknow Super Giants.

Several noteworthy points emerged from their recent performance. Mitchell Santner had an immediate impact in his first appearance of the season. MS Dhoni and Shivam Dube both suffered the unfortunate fate of being dismissed without scoring any runs, with Dube experiencing this for the second consecutive match.

Another significant highlight was Ravindra Jadeja's outstanding all-round display, marking his first such performance of the season. His contributions had the most significant influence on the match at the scenic HPCA Stadium, ultimately earning him the Player of the Match accolade.

Jadeja shines in Dharamsala 

The all-rounder who specialises in spin bowling continues to be valuable in Test matches and One Day Internationals (ODIs), but his performance in T20 Internationals (T20Is), particularly with the bat, has faced significant scrutiny. Jadeja had previously scored an unbeaten 57 runs off 40 balls against LSG in Lucknow, but his innings received heavy criticism. On Sunday, Jadeja came to the crease when Chennai was in trouble once again, having lost three wickets in just two overs, leaving them at 75/4 within nine overs. Captain Ruturaj Gaikwad and all-rounder Daryl Mitchell, who had been promoted to the number three position, had taken the Super Kings to 60/1 by the end of the powerplay. Nonetheless, the team suffered a minor collapse in the subsequent three overs, which threatened to derail their progress and result in a slower scoring rate and a below-par total.

Jadeja is not known for immediately hitting the ball for sixes, so he started his innings with a single and defended several other deliveries. He then made his presence felt by hitting two consecutive fours off Harshal Patel in the 11th over. The first was a lofted shot over mid-off, followed by a square cut that took advantage of a fielding error inside the inner circle.

Over the next six overs, Jadeja demonstrated the value of his wicket by consistently scoring singles and hitting one three, while Moeen Ali and Shardul Thakur took charge against the Punjab bowlers, even being promoted ahead of the experienced wicketkeeper-batsman Dhoni. The momentum shifted in favour of the fielding side after a superb penultimate over from Patel, in which he only conceded two runs, including a wide, and dismissed both Thakur and Dhoni with consecutive slower deliveries.

In the 18th over, Jadeja managed to break free from the pressure by slog-sweeping the in-form wrist spinner Rahul Chahar for a six. He followed it up with a four and another six off Arshdeep Singh in just three deliveries. However, he eventually got caught by PBKS captain Sam Curran at long-on after mistiming a well-disguised knuckle delivery from the left-arm seamer. In his previous innings against LSG, Jadeja's strike rate was less than 150, and without the quickfire contributions from Moeen and Dhoni, CSK would have struggled to reach a total beyond 160. However, on Sunday, Jadeja significantly improved his strike rate to 165.38, which was the highest among all batters in the game, despite the challenging batting conditions. Ultimately, this proved to be the deciding factor between the two teams.

Jadeja continued to have a perfect day in the office by delivering an even more impressive performance with the ball as a left-arm spinner.

PBKS had a shaky start when seamer Tushar Deshpande bowled out Jonny Bairstow and Rilee Rossouw, who had played pivotal roles in Punjab's successful chase in their previous match at Chepauk, in the second over of the innings.

Opener Prabhsimran Singh, who came in as an impact substitute, and the in-form all-rounder Shashank Singh rescued the team with a 53-run partnership for the third wicket. This partnership helped Punjab recover after a slow start, as they had only scored 16/2 after four overs.

Left-arm finger spinner Santner, who had conceded just two singles in the first over of Punjab's chase, provided Chennai with an opportunity by getting Shashank caught at long-on immediately after conceding a boundary. In the next over, Jadeja dismissed Prabhsimran, who attempted to guide the ball towards the extra-cover boundary but instead found himself caught at long-off.

The most significant blow to PBKS's hopes came in Jadeja's final over. Within three deliveries, he removed the opposition captain Curran and finisher Ashutosh Sharma, while conceding only two singles. He finished the match with figures of 3/20.

PBKS, who had achieved a world record by successfully chasing down 262 runs against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), found themselves struggling at 79/7 while chasing a target of 167 runs. After the dismissals of Curran and Ashutosh, any hopes of a late fightback and a miraculous victory faded away. The new objective for the tail-enders was to play out the remaining overs and get as close as possible to the Chennai total to protect their Net Run Rate (NRR).