IPL Play of the Day: Ruturaj Gaikwad, CSK gets outfoxed by oldest trick in the playbook

Chennai Super Kings lost their final home game of the season. Playing against SRH, CSK were not able to getter the better of the SRH pacers, who used the oldest trick in the playbook to dismantle the home team.

Ruturaj Gaikwad-led Chennai Super Kings fell flat in front of a gritty SunRisers Hyderabad side at their own home, complicating their playoff chances in the Indian Premier League. Playing in front of their own fans, CSK were not able to defeat the Pat Cummins-led side despite almost everything going their way.

Chennai dished out a surface that was perhaps the worst possible enemy for SRH – a black-soil wicket. The last time SRH played on black soil, they were bowled out for less than 100 runs, marking their worst batting performance of the season.

CSK vs SRH, IPL 2026: Updates | Scorecard

To make the best use of the surface, Chennai needed to win the toss and make the right call accordingly. Fortunately for them, they won the toss. And that was where it stopped. Whenever CSK had decisions in their own control, they somehow managed to blow away the advantage and slowly handed the game to SRH.

Having said that, it was not a straightforward game by any means. The match hung in the balance deep into the final few overs of the second innings, where Ishan Kishan put in a gritty performance to hand SRH a five-wicket victory with six balls remaining. The crowd played their part as well, whistling and jeering the SRH batters throughout the innings and making life difficult for the visiting side.

However, despite the difficult surface, CSK's target of 181 runs was simply not enough, as SRH bit down hard on the conditions and showed exceptional batsmanship to win the game.

While Kishan top-scored, Heinrich Klaasen's masterful 47 off 26 balls perhaps decided the fate of the game. Klaasen, perhaps the best spin batter in T20 cricket, broke the shackles when no one else could. He was the only batter on the day who looked at the wicket and treated it like a decent batting track, while almost everyone else called it a nightmare for batters.

But unlike CSK captain Ruturaj Gaikwad, we are not going to blame the bowlers in the IPL Play of the Day. Instead, we are going to look at two specific ploys from the SRH bowlers that helped them restrict CSK after Sanju Samson's riveting start in the powerplay.

CSK WIN TOSS, OPT TO BAT FIRST

And to explain that, we have to go back to the toss.

A black-soil wicket in Chennai meant that neither the SRH nor the CSK batters were going to find this pitch comfortable to bat on. So essentially, this wicket became a contest of bad versus worse.

Bat first, and you get to enjoy a fresher wicket. If dew does not come later in the night, then the surface slows down further and you can throw in your spinners to choke the SRH batting unit.

The second option was obvious as well - bowl first, exploit the grippy nature of the pitch early on, and hope that dew arrives late in the second innings, making life easier for the home batters during the chase.

Keeping both those options in mind, Ruturaj Gaikwad decided to bat first in a night game.

SAMSON PROVIDES BALLISTIC START

The only way CSK were going to dominate this game was by having a breathtaking start in the powerplay. And that happened, courtesy of Sanju Samson's excellent first over against Nitish Reddy, where he slammed the medium pacer for 17 runs.

Samson continued his barrage of shots in the second over as well, taking CSK to 31 for no loss in the first two overs.

Seeing the start, Pat Cummins immediately reacted. He brought himself on for the third over and, lo and behold, a lovely delivery in the off-stump channel found the edge of Samson's bat.

From there on, the game ebbed and flowed beautifully in a proper contest between bat and ball, where neither side truly dominated for long periods.

CSK looked set to pull away through a partnership between Dewald Brevis and Shivam Dube, which brought 59 runs in 38 balls, the best stand of the innings till then.

By that point, everything depended on Cummins and his ability to produce breakthroughs every single time he came back into the attack. The SRH captain finished his spell early, in the 16th over of the innings, hoping to inflict maximum damage on the CSK batting order. But he was not able to remove Brevis and Dube, both of whom looked capable of taking the game away in the final overs.

With no options left, Cummins entrusted Sakib Hussain and Eshan Malinga with the death overs.

SAKIB-ESHAN EMPLOY THE OLDEST TRICK IN THE BOOK

On a surface like this, the SRH fast bowlers did not have much choice apart from bowling cutters on different lengths. Cummins, Sakib and Eshan are among the better ones with that particular skill in this tournament.

But with wickets not coming through those slower deliveries, they decided to change one simple thing. Perhaps the oldest trick in the playbook.

Set the batters up with cutters, and then slip in a rapid delivery aimed at the stumps, hoping that the natural variation in pace would be enough to beat the batter.

And shockingly, it worked.

Neither Brevis nor Dube saw the quicker one coming, and both had their stumps rattled. Two back-to-back wickets completely sucked the life out of CSK's innings and they never really got the finish they were looking for.

With momentum on their side, SRH decided to play sensible cricket in the second innings.

Chennai, despite having the better spin attack in the game, were not able to get the two wickets that truly mattered - those of Kishan and Klaasen. Both batters gave chances, but CSK were not able to hold on to the ball.

And with that, CSK complicated their own chances of reaching the playoffs this season. The team will now have to depend on results from other teams to make it through to the top four. CSK will have to win their final game to stay alive, and will hope that they do not repeat such elementary mistakes again.

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