Ahmedabad, Mar 31 (UNI) Ruturaj Gaikwad quickfire 92 off 50 helped Chennai Super Kings a pretty competitive 178/7 against Gujarat Titans at Narendra Modi Stadium in the 2023 IPL opener here on Friday.
In his classical knock, Ruturaj mesmerised CSK fans with his delectable shots. He hammered 4 boundaries and 9 sixes. He missed on his second IPL century. If he could got one, the CSK opener would have reached a unique feat of becoming the 9th batsman in IPL to smash two centuries.
Players including Ben Stokes, Adam Gilchrist, Murali Vijay, Virender Sehwag, Brendon McCullum, Ajinkya Rahane, Hashim Amla and Shikhar Dhawan had scored 2 centuries in the tournament.
Ruturaj had cracked his first hundred in the 2021 IPL wherein he ended up bagging the orange cap.
Interestingly, the rest of the CSK batsmen scored 78 off 71 balls.
Sent into bat by GT Captain Hardik Pandya, CSK lost Devon Conway early for one to Mohammad Shami who picked up his 100th IPL wicket, but Ruturaj looked blithe despite his partner's departure.
The opener dominated the power play alongside Moeen Ali who went big against Shami, plundering 17 runs scored in an over. But, the magician Rashid Khan struck in his first over and got rid of Moeen (23) and Ben Stokes (7).
Despite this, Ruturaj continued with his blitzkrieg. Few of the boundaries and sixes he struck were prescription shots mentioned in the book. He brought up his fifty off 23 balls with a magnificent six.
CSK, however, lost the momentum after the second strategic timeout where Gujarat Titans pulled things back to an extent.
Ruturaj missed out on his century, but it was mainly due to Shivam Dube (19 off 18) and Ambati Rayudu (12 off 12), that CSK could not accelerate towards the end.
Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni (14 off 7, 1x4 1x6) played a couple of enterprising shots, but would not be sure if he is pleased with the total.
For GT, Shami, Rashid and Alzarri Joseph picked two wickets each, and a wicket was bagged by Joshua Little.
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