Nothing is going right for the five-time champions Chennai Super Kings. Things went from bad to worse for one of the most successful franchises on Sunday night as the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) handed a 43-run drubbing at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. The Ruturaj Gaikwad-led side were never in with a chance once they conceded 250 runs on the board, but what was disappointing was the lack of fight by the team. CSK were unable to come even close to RCB’s total and went down by more than 40 runs. Gaikwad painted a sorry picture during his chat with the broadcaster after the loss as he was short of words to sum up his team’s performance.
Gaikwad doesn’t have anyone else to blame apart from himself. For the third game in a row, his captaincy left a lot to be desired. Moreover, he once again failed to stand up for his team with the bat, scoring just seven runs before being sent back to the pavilion by Jacob Duffy. In the three games for CSK in IPL 2026, the right-hander has managed just 41 runs, with his best score being 28.
For the majority of the chase, it seemed that CSK would lose the contest by at least 80-90 runs, but a lower-order blitz helped the franchise avoid a shellacking. However, Gaikwad raised his hand and took the blame on himself for the team’s loss against rivals RCB.
“Even I was surprised, to be honest. Great fight by Sarfaraz, Prashant Veer, Jamie Overton, and even to some extent Shivam Dubey. So I think, maybe I would have, contributed more top of the order. You never know, they would have chased it down. So definitely it’s on me today,” said Gaikwad.
What happened in the match between RCB and CSK?
RCB posted 250/3 in the allotted twenty overs after being asked to bat first. Tim David hammered 70 runs off 25 balls with the help of eight sixes. Skipper Rajat Patidar also chipped in with a quickfire unbeaten knock of 49 as the RCB batters hammered the CSK bowlers all around the park.
The task was daunting in the chase; however, CSK never made a run for the jugular, losing Sanju Samson, Gaikwad and Ayush Mhatre within the first three overs. Sarfaraz Khan (50), Prashant Veer (43) and Jamie Overton (37) played valuable knocks, but in the end, CSK fell short by 43 runs.
CSK were clumsy in the field as well. Virat Kohli’s catch was dropped inside the powerplay while Anshul Kamboj overstepped when Tim David was bowled. At that time, David was 28, but he eventually made an unbeaten 70.
Talking about these errors, Ruturaj said, “Anshul almost got a wicket of him. Unfortunately, it was an illegal delivery, but after that, he just smacked all around the park.”
“Maybe we would have had momentum to ourselves, but I think we still had the game in our hands till the 13th, 14th over, and that’s when the momentum really shifted.”
