NEW DELHI:
Chennai Super Kings and England spinner
Moeen Ali backed his captain
Mahendra Singh Dhoni, saying the skipper knows when to bowl his players.
Moeen, who did not bowl in their opening game, returned figures of 4/26 against
Lucknow Super Giants to earn the ‘Player of the Match’ award. The off-spinner helped CSK secure a 12-run win in a high-scoring contest where both sides breached the 200-run mark.
The win against LSG was the season’s first win for CSK.
“MS knows what he’s doing. The great thing about bowling under MS is he knows when to bowl players,” Moeen said. “I’m not going to bowl all the time with Jadeja in there. I think it’s going to take partnerships and individuals to stand up and win games.”
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IPL 2023: Gaikwad, Moeen lift CSK to first season win
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<p>An opening century partnership between Ruturaj Gaikwad and Devon Conway helped Chennai Super Kings to a 12-run win over Lucknow Super Giants at the Indian Premier League on Monday.<br /></p>
<p>The match began five minutes late after a dog invasion but Gaikwad (57) and Conway (47) soon turned the spotlight to cricket with their blazing stand of 110 in Chennai.<br /></p>
<p>Four-time winners Chennai, led by MS Dhoni, reached 217/7, a total their bowlers defended by restricting Lucknow to 205/7 and register their first win of this season.<br /></p>
<p>England’ Moeen Ali took four key wickets and was ably supported by fellow spinner Mitchell Santner, who returned impressive figures of 1-21.<br /></p>
<p>But Gaikwad set up victory as he smashed his way to his second succesive half-century this season to entertain a raucous home crowd, which witnessed its team in action live after a long break due to Covid.<br /></p>
<p>The 16th edition of the money-spinning T20 tournament has returned to its home-and-away format after a few years of pandemic forced closed-door and limited-venue seasons.<br /></p>
<p>Gaikwad tore into the Lucknow attack with a string of sixes including one off England’s Mark Wood after the-left handed Conway hit the express bowler for three boundaries in that over.<br /></p>
<p>Lucknow hit back to remove the openers after leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi sent back Gaikwad and Wood had his revenge on Conway with Krunal Pandya taking a stunning low and diving catch in the deep.<br /></p>
<p>Lucknow kept chipping away with wickets including Ben Stokes out for eight before Ambati Rayudu, who hit an unbeaten 27, took the total past 200.<br /></p>
<p>Dhoni hit two straight sixes off Wood in the final over to go past 5000 IPL runs before he departed.<br /></p>
<p>In reply, Kyle Mayers smashed 53 off 22 balls to start the chase strongly but Lucknow soon lost their way to Moeen’s off-spin.<br /></p>
<p>Moeen got Mayers, skipper KL Rahul (20) and Marcus Stoinis (21) to dent the chase and despite Nicholas Pooran’s quickfire 32 Lucknow could not recover.<br /></p>
Moeen said he has no issues with his spin being used sparingly by captain Dhoni. The 35-year-old did not bowl against champions Gujarat Titans, who won by five wickets, in their tournament opener.
Dhoni astutely marshalled his spin resources with Moeen and Mitchell Santner sharing five wickets between them and conceding 47 runs in their eight combined overs to tilt the game in Chennai’s favour.
“I tried to bowl like I do in Test cricket and just spin it as hard as I can,” the England player said after collecting the Player of the Match award.
“They have big hitters so you don’t want to get it up there against these guys but we had a good (bowling) partnership so it was nice to get the win.”
With all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja also in the squad, Chennai boast a formidable spin attack and Moeen was confident Dhoni would get the best out of them.
England Test captain Ben Stokes, who is managing a knee injury and did not bowl against Gujarat, sent down one over conceding 18 runs.
The Chennai bowlers conceded three no-balls and 13 wides against Lucknow and Dhoni said they had to cut down on the extra deliveries.
“Or they’ll have to play under a new captain,” the former India skipper added.
(With inputs from Reuters)
