Chennai: Having made two out of two after the baton was passed to him by talismanic M S Dhoni, five time champions and title holder Chennai Super Kings (CSK) skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad said last night's comprehensive 63 win over Gujarat Titans (GT) was a near perfect game as the team excelled in all the three departments.
Speaking after the team's victory, which took CSK to the top of the table, Ruturaj, who has now made it 2-0 as an IPL captain, said it was thrilling about the second win in a row.
In a repeat of last year's summit clash, CSK, asked to bat first, scored 206 for six, riding on a breezy start at the top and Shivam Dube's swashbuckling knock, and restricted GT to 143 for eight, with all the three medium pacers Deepak Chahar, Tushar Deshpande and Mustafizur Rahman chipping in with two wickets each to ensure a comfortable win for the home team in front of a crowd of more than 30,000 at the M.A.Chidambaram Stadium.
"It was a near to perfect game, in the sense of batting-bowling-fielding, all three departments", he said.
"Against a team like Gujarat, we had to produce this kind of performance. (100+ runs in first ten overs)", the skipper, who scored 46 in 36 balls after a brisk opening stand with Rachin Ravindra (46, 20 balls), said.
"In Chennai when you are not sure how the wicket will be, you must bat well irrespective of when you're batting. Having wickets in the last ten (overs) really helps here", he observed.
"Personally, thought Rachin batted and put us against in the game. Jinx (Ajinkya Rahane) and Shivam Dube (51, 23 balls) played good roles. Not to forget our youngster Sameer Rizvi as well", the CSK skipper said.
On the phenomenal batting of Dube, Ruturaj said "Just confidence"...When he came here the management worked with him personally, Mahi bhai (MS Dhoni) worked with him personally. He knows what role he is playing and which bowler to take on. A big plus for us."
On the team's fielding, when they held some good catches in the deep, including three catches by Rachin Ravindra, the CSK captain said "I think pretty much same, I am impressed as well. Maybe we have got 1-2 extra youngsters in the team. Great effort from Jinx (who took a stunning low catch diving forward to get rid of David Miller off Tushar Deshpande, running in from the deep square leg fence) even in the last game and this game."
Having figures in three franchisees, Shivam Dube, who was adjudged man of the match for his scintillating effort, said "this franchise is something different from all others. They are giving me the freedom. They want me to do better and I also want to win some matches."
On whacking the short balls, he said "I have worked in that way. It is helping me. I know they will bowl me some short balls and I'm ready for that. They want me to score with a higher strike-rate and that is what I'm doing."
Losing GT skipper Shubman Gill, who fell early in a tough chase, said his team was outplayed when the CSK was batting and then their bowlers were spot on and executed their plans well.
After losing three wickets by the eighth over, GT never really seemed to be in the hunt in the run chase and lost wickets at regular intervals, amid mounting asking rate, as the CSK bowlers kept them on tight leash.
"They outplayed us when they were batting and when they bowled their execution was spot on. We backed ourselves to get a good powerplay score, but once we couldn't we were always playing catch up", he said.
About his team's bowling, Gill said "in T20 you can always talk about 10-15 runs here and there but eventually it is about how much they got. We were expecting to chase anything between 190 to 200 but we can talk about how we could've stopped a few more boundaries."
"Going into the match chasing on this wicket, we always expected to chase 190-200 because it was a good wicket with grass covering. We let ourselves down while batting", he added.
On his role as new GT skipper after Hardik Pandya, who guided the team to title win in its maiden IPL in 2022 and to the final in the last edition, moved to Mumbai Indians, Gill said "Lots of new... experiencing lot of different things. We had two finals in the past two years...exciting times."