Watson superb century guided CSK to their third IPL trophy

Chennai Super Kings conquered the 2018 vivo IPL by beating Sunrisers Hyderabad by 8 wickets with nine balls remaining and lifted their third IPL trophy after seven years in Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai.

Source: Hindustan Times

By winning the toss, skipper Dhoni elected to ball first and was succeeded in removing young opener Shreevets Goswami by the powerful throw from Karn Sharma. Kane Williamson and Shikhar Dhawan managed to pull up the game of Sunrisers in the powerplay and by the end of it, SRH managed to score 42 runs with the loss of one wicket. Jadeja removed Shikhar Dhawan (26) in the 9th over when he went for a for a slog sweep. Game changed in the eleventh over when Shakib pulled a six and a boundary to Jadeja and managed to get 16 runs in that over. In the 13th over, Leggie Karn Sharma removed the dangerman Kane Williamson by stumping from the safe hand of Skipper Dhoni. Yousuf Pathan joined hand with Shakib and built a small partnership of 33 runs, but soon Shakib lost his coolness and tried to go behind Bravo and was caught on the extra covers by Raina on a full toss delivery. SRH played a chance on Deepak Hooda, but the plan failed as he was dismissed by Ngidi on the meagre score of 3. Carlos Braithwaite showed some fire power in the last over as SRH set a target of 179 for CSK with the help of a Pathan power show of 47*(25).

CSK could not a get a good start, as the last match superstar Faf du Phlesis was dismissed early by Sandeep Sharma on 10 (11). In the last over of the powerplay, CSK get some fire power from Both Raina and Watson and took the score to 35 with the loss of 1 wicket. Both the batsman first tried to understand the nature of the pitch and then fired some big shots especially Shane Watson, who took eleven deliveries to start his inning but later scored a brilliant century, 117 (57) runs with a strike rate of 205. Shane Watson hit 11 boundaries and 8 big sixes. Suresh Raina also showed some brilliant batting and scored 32 (24). A partnership of 117 was broken by Carlos Braithwaite by dismissing Suresh Raina on a beautiful bouncer. Ambati Rayudu (16) joins hand with Shane Watson and took the team to the winning total.

This is the third IPL trophy for the Mighty Chennai Super Kings. CSK returned in IPL after two years after being banned in 2015. Once again M S Dhoni showed that why he is known as captain cool and the best captain in the world.

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