IPL 2022: How good has R Ashwin been with the bat? Burning questions from RR vs CSK clash – Firstcricket News, Firstpost

Rajasthan Royals pulled things back after a dismal start to the game to not just clinch a win, but go over Lucknow Super Giants on the points table to earn the cushion of a second qualifier if needed.

Chennai Super Kings’ run in the season came to an end with just four wins in 14 games, an unimpressive show from the defending champions, who will likely be led by MS Dhoni next year too according to his words at the toss.

Here we raise a few burning questions from the clash.

How bad was CSK’s slowdown?

Chennai Super Kings smashed 75 runs in the powerplay overs, the third-highest score inside the first six overs in the season, but also only made the same amount of runs in the remaining 14 overs in an epic slowdown. The unspectacular transformation is best reflected in their boundary count. In the sixth over of the CSK innings, Moeen Ali smashed Trent Boult for six boundaries in an over — 6, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4.

Moeen Ali slowed down considerably after the powerplay overs. Sportzpics

In the remaining 14 overs, they would score just five boundaries in all. 72 runs out of CSK’s total of 150 came in a four-over slot between the third and sixth over. The approach was triggered by the fall of three wickets in the space of 10 runs between the 8th and 11th overs. MS Dhoni reiterated that “if we had lost another wicket at that point, we wouldn’t have got anything to defend”. With a longish tail, CSK meandered through the middle overs with Moeen Ali coming straight from the wild powerplay to drop anchor — he went from making 70 in 31 balls to scoring just 23 runs in his last 26 balls.

Why didn’t Dhoni come in earlier?

There’s no analytical explanation to this, but based on MS Dhoni and CSK’s past, it could likely be to give some time in the middle for the likes of Narayan Jagadeesan. In IPL 2020, chasing a huge total of 217 against Rajasthan Royals, Dhoni came out to bat at No.7, sending the likes of Sam Curran and Kedar Jadhav in a tall run chase ahead of him. He later revealed in the post-match presentation that CSK “wanted to try different things” early in the season and that he hasn’t had too much time in the middle due to quarantine. Dhoni eventually accelerated, but it came far too late as CSK lost that game by 16 runs.

Here, with their season done and dusted, Dhoni walked in at No.6 with the team having just one decent batter, Mitchell Santner, below him. Dhoni adopted a conservative approach from the word go, playing out 28 balls for 26 runs with the team’s scoring rate spiralling down in a mind-blowing fashion. Moeen Ali too dropped anchor as CSK conceded the game through this stand. Dhoni cited a lack of batting depth for the approach, but CSK never put themselves in a winning position with the slowdown, triggered by Dhoni delaying his own entry and then dropping anchor forcefully.

Why Gaikwad’s dismissal to Boult was predictable

Ruturaj Gaikwad nicked off Trent Boult early in the innings to concede his third dismissal to the left-arm quick in 24 balls. Boult isn’t the only left-arm fast bowler Ruturaj Gaikwad struggles against. Since 2020, Gaikwad has been dismissed 11 times by left-arm quicks, the most by any player in the IPL in this time frame. He averaged just 17 against them with the strike rate lower than 130.

What’s notable is that nine of these 11 dismissals have come inside the powerplay overs. This is in contrast to his record in the powerplay against right-arm quicks — an average of 49.8 with just six dismissals over more than double the number of balls. His weakness against left-arm quicks is an established one and Boult, yet again, exploited it to give RR an early breakthrough.

Why Jos Buttler’s form will worry Rajasthan Royals

Jos Buttler’s spectacular start to the season has hit a roadblock in the last few matches with his run-scoring slowing down with dismissals inside the powerplay. In his first seven games in the season, Buttler had recorded an incredible 491 runs. In the next seven games, though, Buttler has only managed 138 runs with five of his seven dismissals coming inside the powerplay overs where his strike rate has gone down to 97.6.

Did his returns get affected by the lack of batting depth in the Rajasthan Royals setup? Likely. With the team hesitant to play Rassie van der Dussen, the onus lies on Sanju Samson if Buttler fails, and the approach is likely triggered by the need for more security, but it has in turn only led to Buttler struggling to get through the powerplay overs. With the playoffs set to be played on fresh wickets, Buttler’s starts would be key to Rajasthan’s chances and they will want to see him up the ante again.

This is the first time R Ashwin has batted more than 100 balls in an IPL season, and he has made it count. Sportzpics

How Ashwin’s improved batting show has covered up a big gap in RR’s batting line-up

With Sanju Samson not striking form and Jos Buttler curbing his attacking role, Ravichandran Ashwin’s role as a batter became crucial to this RR setup. He was the drop-in anchor in the middle overs, who often took an attacking role later if needed. Used as a stop-gap No.3 and as a floater, Ashwin has delivered with the bat this season, so much so that his average and strike rate are better than that of the likes of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Kane Williamson, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Moeen Ali, Devdutt Padikkal, Kane Williamson, Mayank Agarwal and Venkatesh Iyer to name a few.

This is the first time Ashwin has batted more than 100 balls in an IPL season, and he has made it count. He averages more than 30 and strikes at a rate of 146.4 in the season with the bat. All of this has allowed Rajasthan to bridge a major gap in their team balance with a key all-rounder missing after Nathan Coulter-Nile’s injury. With the team having Riyan Parag at No.6, Ashwin at No.7 and a long tail on paper, the onus was on the top-order to make big runs or see a late collapse. But Ashwin has arrested this trend by taking on a difficult role in this line-up and nailing it.

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