Courtesy: BCCI/IPL
In the 11th match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 season, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) suffered a narrow six-run loss against hosts Rajasthan Royals (RR) at the Barsapara Stadium in Guwahati on Sunday, March 30. After the conclusion of the highly pulsating contest, Stephen Fleming, the head coach of CSK, stated in the post-match press conference that they have won one match out of their first three in the IPL 2025 season, which is “not all bad” of a start to the campaign for the five-time champions.
Notably, in front of the sea of yellow in the grandstands during their away match at the Barsapara Stadium in Guwahati, CSK weren’t quite at their best in certain phases with bat, ball, and in the field, and it proved to be costly for them. RR got off to a flying start in the powerplay with a swashbuckling fifty from Nitish Rana, who ended up scoring 81 runs in just 36 balls with 10 fours and five maximums, setting up a perfect platform for his team to go past 200 runs.
But then, in the second half of RR’s innings, after Ravichandran Ashwin dismissed Nitish Rana, the rest of the CSK bowlers stepped-up, to help their team make an exceptional comeback. Noor Ahmad and Matheesha Pathirana were the pick of the bowlers with figures of 2/28 in their four-over spells each, which meant that RR could only get up to 182/9 in their allotted 20 overs, scoring just 53 runs in the final eight overs of the innings.
Rajasthan Royals registered their first win of IPL 2025 season vs CSK
In the run chase, RR made a brilliant start with Jofra Archer bowling a wicket-maiden, dismissing in-form Rachin Ravindra for zero. Following the conclusion of the powerplay, where CSK scored just 42 runs, their batting lineup, led by a fifty from captain Ruturaj Gaikwad, kept finding regular boundaries, to stay in the match despite the four wickets taken by Wanindu Hasaranga, but ultimately, RR did enough to hold them off in the last over, to register their first win of the IPL 2025.
After CSK head coach Stephen Fleming alluded to the difference-maker being the powerplay stage where they were quite poor with both bat and ball against RR, he went on to say, as per Cricbuzz, in the post-match press conference, “"We've won one out of three. It's not all bad. The competition's about that - everyone's sort of beating each other. A couple of teams are up the top. But the way we respond, the resilience to a loss like this is always very important.”
“Going back home, I just hope we can get a wicket that we can understand and play well on with the weapons that we've got. But it's not all bad. We did some good things but we just need to tidy up a few others,” he added.
