IPL 2023 Qualifier 1 Live Report - Gujarat Titans vs Chennai Super Kings in Chennai

MS Dhoni is in the IPL final. He has had the whole country wrapped around his fingertips without even trying. And nights like these are the reason why. Even the umpires couldn’t win against him.

On a pitch that he likes – the kind that used to greet international teams during his reign as India captain – he met Gujarat Titans in their own comfort zone and smothered them. A team that likes lost chasing for only the fourth time in their history.

It really did feel like destiny was at play here. Chennai Super Kings’ batters mis-hit a lot. But they still managed 172. Their quicks sprayed it around. But those short balls down leg and full tosses out wide actually got wickets.

CSK finished ninth last season. But here they are again. In their 10th final. All of Chepauk is rumbling. "CEE-YESS-KAAY! CEE-YESS-KAAAY! CEE-YESS-KAAY!"

Rashid Khan is striking at over 200 on a pitch where everybody else has struggled to hit the ball. How good is he?!

But CSK just will not be denied tonight. Their batters mis-hit a lot. But they still managed 172. Their bowlers are taking wickets with short balls down leg and full tosses outside off.

There's destiny in play here

CSK bowling coach Dwayne Bravo has begun to pace on the boundary edge.

This game is back in the balance.

Titans have decided they'll do this in sixes. Vijay Shankar has reach. Rashid Khan hits unusual areas. This is the result

Titans need 39 off 18 now. CSK are two overs behind on over-rate. That means they'll have one less fielder on the boundary from the moment they fall short. In a game as big as this, that might be too big a handicap.

Vijay is out. Caught brilliantly by Ruturaj running in from deep midwicket. There is so much happening in this game. DO NOT MOVE!

He's been good enough to take runs of Pathirana too. Showed off his snake shot. Showed off his power with a six over cover. And showed off his inventiveness with a fully upright paddle sweep past the wicketkeeper for four

Titans need that unorthodoxy now. It's going to be crucial if they're to run down the 58 runs they need in the last four overs.

There is a hold up in play because Dhoni wanted Pathirana to bowl but Pathirana had been off the field for a while and the umpires said he can't bowl just yet. He was off the field for too long.

Dhoni doesn't let it go just like that. He goes up to the umpires. Four minutes are spent with the players and the officials just mulling about and talking. And after all that, Pathirana comes on to bowl anyway

That record is in trouble now with the equation at 78 off 36. Tewatia has done the amazing before. Rashid has made a whole life out of it. So they'll defo think there's still a chance.

The required rate was pushing two a ball.

Titans had let it get there because the game plan was to have Gill at the crease in the pointy end.

He was batting beautifully too. His control percentage on a pitch where the ball was stopping, where the ball was turning, where it was keeping low, was 95%.

Dhoni tried to prise him out with Pathirana. It didn't work. Pathirana lost his lines under big-game pressure.

Now he turns to Deepak Chahar, to tempt Gill, to see if he'll go for the big shot against the seamer who doesn't bowl all that fast.

And he does. And it's a ball that should get the big shot. Short and down leg. Only instead of going out of the park, it lands in deep square leg's hands.

And before the over is done, Chahar even attempts to run Vijay Shankar out at the non-strikers' end for backing up. He hadn't. He was safe.

Even with Gill looking set, his team has only been able to score 47 runs in 48 balls since the field spread. The've lost two wickets in that time - Shanaka and Miller.

Jadeja took them both out, even though he had an unfavourable match-up with Miller. Beautiful ball though. Pitching on off, tempting him to think he could free his arms, and then turning through the gap between bat and body to bowl him.

Pathirana feeling the pressure? His first over has four wides.

This is Lasith Malinga talking about the IPL's newest slinga and how he wants to make Pathirana even better

Dhoni has turned to him to take Shubman Gill out because he has this game in his hands. The set batter especially one of this caliber, if he lasts the 20 overs, will win this game. So Dhoni is making his play.

He's Jadeja's first wicket of the night. But he might have done enough you know.

Feels like he was promoted for one reason: to smash Theekshana, which he did.

And the added benefit of that is their finishers - Miller, Tewatia etc - could still look forward to an ideal point of entry

Here's Miller now. With just about half the innings to make an impact. He'll be crucial to take on the Jadeja threat.

In the midst of being smashed by his Sri Lanka captain, Theekshana bowls a quicker ball, angled into middle stump, and it cuts across the right-hander.

The angle makes him play into the leg side. The turn squares him up and beats the leading edge. Dhoni from behind the stumps cries "that's the one".

Titans meanwhile have promoted their Sri Lankan Dasun Shanaka up the order to perhaps take on Theekshana.

This chase will be Dhoni's instincts and his bowlers' execution vs Hardik and Nehra's out-of-the-box thoughts.

On a pitch with low bounce, it is not easy to loft spinners.

Both Hardik and Gill try it. They see Theekshana and it feels like they wanna take him out. If they had, CSK would've been in all sorts of trouble. The mystery spinner going for runs on a pitch best suited for him in defence of a par total would NOT have been good.

But Theekshana has faced this kind of fire.

He bowls in the death for Sri Lanka.

He won them a Super Over. When was the last time you heard of a spinner winning a game in the Super Over?

He's had eight catches dropped off his bowling. His economy rate is up partly as a result of that. Those people who should've been back in the hut ended up taking him for runs.

Here though, the catch is taken. Hardik gives the opportunity. A loft to point. And who's waiting there? The best fielder in the country. Jadeja. It's only Theekshana's second wicket at Chepauk. But its a big one.

Last game, Hardik chose not to bat.

The game didn't matter for Titans. They had qualified and would get two shots at a place in the final. So he kept demoting himself to let his team-mates deal with a tough game and they came through with flying colours.

Now in a game that matters, Hardik Pandya is up at No. 3 and he starts off with a four first ball.

See what happens when pace comes on. Mohammed Shami gets whacked in the 20th over. The wicket ball was a cutter. He hasn't gone cutters this entire season. He didn't earlier in the over. He couldn't avoid it after those big hits.

Mohit in his post-innings interview with Star Sports says there is no dew.

Chepauk is roaring as Dhoni takes strike.

And then the volume goes off.

Hardik takes the catch. And his hero walks off.

Are these are the last glimpses of MS Dhoni on a cricket field?

Mohit Sharma, meanwhile, is having a great game. He has not gone pace up at all. All of it is slow. All of it is perfect for this pitch and he finishes his spell with 2 for 31. Four dots and three boundaries. Those are typical of a slower ball specialists stats. With no pace arriving, you still score, but it's never the big ones. Only singles and twos.

Titans have been hit with a slow over rate penalty though. So they'll spend the last over with one less man on the boundary.

CSK went 29 balls without a boundary between the 10th and the 15th overs.

Then they went 16 balls without a boundary between the 16th and the 18th overs.

Rayudu broke it with a six. But Rashid took him out next ball

In comes MS Dhoni with the game slipping away. This might be the last time he bats in Chennai... ever

This has been a defensive bowling masterclass from Titans. And CSK haven't exactly helped themselves with their tactics. Conway should've hit out or got out. Rahane really wasn't suited to bat here.

Now Conway and Rahane are out.

CSK have two new batters at the crease.

Titans didn't take any wickets in the first 10 overs - but they never let CSK off the leash. Only 85 runs were scored.

Now they're reaping the rewards of that pressure. Four wickets for 42 runs

Ajinkya Rahane isn't the greatest in these conditions. Or against these bowlers. He needs pace on the ball, especially when he starts. Titans aren't giving him that. Even their quicks are bowling slower at him.

At the other end is Conway, who looks completely out of sorts. In the 15th over, his control percentage hit 50. That means he was mis-hitting one in two balls. This is a horrible combination for CSK. One out of sorts batter. One who has history of not being good on slow pitches.

So the question comes up.

This is from an interview that Sid Monga did with CSK head coach Stephen Fleming.

Q: We near the stage where batsmen start ruling themselves out when they are not hitting the ball well and are denying others the chance to do so?

A: Nah, that's part of the battle, isn't it? Even if you are not hitting it well, that constant battle to come right. Some guys have started terribly and ended up with the best hundreds you can see. I like that battle.

An example of that is Yuvraj Singh in the 2014 World T20 final. He knows he is one of the best, so he doesn't give it up, keeps trying, and Sri Lanka go on an all-out defensive and he ends up with 11 off 21. And India lose.

That's the beauty of it, isn't it? Not let someone get away with it just because they can tap out. "Not my day today, I am out."

Net bowler last season. Main bowler this season. All at 34 years old.

Mohit Sharma made his name in Chennai. Then he vanished for a while and now here he is once more, showing that experience will always matter.

Mohit wanted to keep his game sharp, which is why, without any ego, he spent 2022 with Titans bowling to their batters in training.

Reward for that is when this season they needed a bowler, they turned to him, and he's provided them both control and wickets. Here's he's taken out Gaikwad who seemed to be getting the better of the conditions.

With him gone, CSK's have one guy who's been struggling all night with another guy who is new to the crease. This is dangerous, and this is why.

This is a seven-ball sequence between the 11th and the 12th overs. This is what happens on slow pitches. This is why having a set batter there is so so so vital. It is also why Titans never blinked when they had to go 10 overs without any wickets. They kept at it. Bowling back of a length if you're a seamer, bowling flat and at the stumps if you're a spinner

CSK's half-centurion (Gaikwad) and their disrupter, their six-hitter (Dube) are back in the hut now.

A man who was caught off a no-ball on 2 off 7 is now at fifty off 36 balls.

Ruturaj Gaikwad is carrying this CSK innings and he's doing it well. It's his 14th fifty and he is finding ways to look good even on a pitch where the ball is stopping on the batter and some are keeping a bit low.

Balance is key to his T20 power game and here again he's showing that he can find it even in unfriendly conditions.

CSK's top scorer is having a tough night. 585 runs before today. For context, Gaikwad's control percentage is in the 60s as well. It just shows you how well Titans have bowled

This pitch is a bit slow and some balls are keeping low. The hard lengths and tight lines from the fast bowlers meant Conway and Gaikwad coudln't get under the ball, or free their arms. No easy cuts, pulls of flicks.

Then when spin came on, it was the same. Rashid and Noor aren't giving away the stumps. They're asking CSK to take risks if they want to score big. And in a game like this, where one mistake might be the difference between winning and losing, CSK are trying their hardest to hold their nerve, even if it means a few quiet overs.

The question though is, with a batting line-up as deep as the one they have, can't they afford to take that risk? Especially when they knew there will be dew around in the night which will mess with their spinners' effectiveness when it is their turn to bowl

Dhoni often says he waits on the bowler to make the mistake.

Gaikwad plays the same way, except its at the top of the order.

The slightest chance he gets, he takes full toll, like in the fifth over from Rashid Khan. The ace legspinner had him tied down by bowling into the wicket and at the stumps.

Once all that pressure was created, Rashid gambled. He went for the tossed up ball, but Gaikwad doesn't always get flustered when he plays dots. And that mindset helps him stay in control and capitalise on the ball meant to bait him into a bad shot. Outstanding inside out cover drive for four. And it's followed by another mistake being punished - Noor Ahmad this time, bowling short and getting pulled to the square leg boundary

Devon Conway has come down the track at Mohammed Shami.

He has tried to walk across and scoop Darshan Nalkande.

Neither worked. He got a grand total of one run for those risks.

He's taking those risks because he's worried he's taking too much time to get going, which is resulting in CSK being too quiet in the powerplay.

Of course, when he stops and plays a proper shot, the back foot punch through point, he gets the four he's been looking for.

CSK's openers are more or less orthodox. Their threat is that of a freight train. They take a while to get up to steam but once they do, they're very hard to stop

Nayan Doshi (RCB v DC - 3rd place playoff 2010)
Sunny Gupta (DD v CSK - 2nd Qualifier 2012)
Trent Boult (SRH v GL - 2nd Qualifier 2016)
Khaleel Ahmed (SRH v KKR - 2nd Qualifier 2018)

AND HE STRIKES IN HIS FIRST OVER!

ONLY FOR IT TO BE CALLED A NO-BALL!

Gaikwad was gone. And then he is called back. The crowd, meanwhile, having gone pin-drop silent is now screaming "We want sixer" and they get it.

And in amid all this, Hardik Pandya makes sure to walk to his young bowler and pat him on the back. Thats just the kind of leader he is.

HUGE lifeline for Super Kings. Their opening stand is the base on which their empire is built. Here it broke in the first over. Only for luck to favour them.

For the first five seasons of his IPL career, he was meh. Since 2021, he's been bank. Mohammed Shami with the new ball is a massive threat, especially when batters know they will need par-plus scores to have any chance of winning.

CSK rely on Gaikwad and Conway for a lot of their runs - the two have scored 688 as a pair this season - and neither has a great record against GT's pace ace. All this and more are part of Sidharth Monga's Tactics Board

Hardik has seen dew coming in, so he'd like to know exactly what he will need to chase to make the final. He also takes pride in how his team plays, in how they are smart and adapt to conditions. They're also not shy about taking big calls. Like bringing in a guy who hasn't played at all this season for this HUGE game - Darshan Nalkande replaces Yash Dayal..

Dhoni would have bowled first as well, basically because he has seen how good Titans are in a chase and he didn't want to give them that comfort zone. Here are the playing XIs

A little bit about Nalkande: he took four wickets in four balls in a semi-final match in India's domestic T20 tournament, the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, in 2021. Titans' Abhinav Manohar was part of that game.

Deivarayan Muthu reports from Chepauk:

Qualifier 1 is likely to be played on pitch no.5, which had previously been used for the afternoon league fixture between PBKS and CSK in April. PBKS had chased down 201 off the very last ball, with the ball not turning that much. Tomorrow's Eliminator is likely to be played on the surface that had been used for CSK vs MI.

With the pitches not offering the sharp turn that CSK were used to in the past at Chepauk, coach Stephen Fleming recently said that CSK are still coming to terms with how to play at home. Seamers (41) have picked up more wickets than spinners (39) in Chennai in IPL 2023, with the average first-innings score at 168.

Dew was a major factor in CSK's last league match at Chepauk, against KKR. The dew had also set in during the CSK-RR match earlier in the season. The changing conditions have somewhat surprised MS Dhoni and Stephen Fleming.

Dew wasn't that much of a factor back in the day at the venue. Local boy R Ashwin recently suggested in his Youtube channel that the revamped Eastern stands - and the cross-ventilation in place in the gaps between stands - have allowed the sea breeze to bring in some moisture and dew.

GT had an optional net yesterday, with the big guns, including Hardik Pandya and Rashid Khan missing. But there seemed to be a bit of dew around in the night when Vijay Shankar batted until 10pm.

Meanwhile, MS Dhoni was doing MS Dhoni things at training on the eve of the game. He turned up towards the close of CSK's training session, in a training tank top and shorts without pads, and kept peppering the leg-side boundary.

The Preview
Sets up a battle between two very similar teams with very similar strengths and very similar readers, by Shashank Kishore.

How CSK filled the Bravo-sized hole in the death overs
By turning to Bravo himself. Deivarayan Muthu has the story.

Fast bowlers are supposed to be unpredictable if they want to survive in T20 cricket. and yet there has been one who is thriving simply because of his stubborn adherence to the hard lengths. This is Sidharth Monga on Mohammed Shami succeeding by flying in the face of all logic

And finally something I scribbled about Hardik and his captaincy.