The young Vaibhav Suryavanshi (33-ball 57, 4×4, 4×6) stood out as Rajasthan Royals (RR) comfortably beat Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in a battle of the bottom-placed teams at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Tuesday.
The Sanju Samson-led RR won with six wickets and 17 balls to spare. Pacer Akash Madhwal first did well to take 3-29 as RR restricted CSK to 187-8.
RR batting coach Vikram Rathore was all praise for Suryavanshi. “The kind of skill the young Vaibhav has shown — we saw him for the first time in nets and saw what he could do, but to do it in a game situation is something different. Also, to do it once is different, but to do it again and to score runs in our last game is great. In fact, today’s knock was even better,” said Rathour.
Meanwhile, CSK, reeling under a series of below-par performances by established players, tried some young blood. One of them was medium pacer Anshul Kamboj. The 24-year-old originally from Karnal, Haryana, took 1-21 in three overs, but was impressive. CSK head coach Stephen Fleming appreciated the effort and felt that Kamboj, who has been picked for the India ‘A’ tour to England, will be effective there. “Kamboj has good speeds 138-139 kmph. His big strength is his length — he gets the ball to wobble. He can do very well on that England tour in conditions that seam and swing. He has some real potential with both the white as well as red ball,” said Fleming.
The New Zealander, meanwhile, admitted that CSK are fittingly at the bottom. “It’s probably fitting that we’re at the bottom. We’ve played that type of cricket, so you can’t hide away from it. The training has been good, intensity was fine for these two games, but we are lacking performances in the middle again. Our [batting] order is not right at this stage and that’s something that we’re always looking to rejig. We have some strong ideas for next year so that all facets are covered. It hasn’t been possible this year because of lack of runs at the top,” said Fleming as CSK are all but likely to finish with the wooden spoon.
