Du Plessis eases CSK's worry lines at the top

After the second ball of the ninth over of the chase, Faf du Plessis, fielding at long-off, turned towards the crowd, took a batting stance, crouched low and played the perfect dab past short third. The ball would have beaten the fielder on his left. Du Plessis wasn't just trying out a random shot; he was mirroring one. He had seen Sarfaraz Khan play the same shot with perfection against a fast off-break from Ravindra Jadeja. Du Plessis shook his head in disappointment but was quick enough to acknowledge the quality of the shot. A thumbs up followed as he took his position again.

It was a quality shot, on a sluggish surface against a quality spinner and du Plessis understood that. Earlier in the day, he had to face off against R Ashwin and M Ashwin to try and resurrect the innings. In CSK's win, and in KXIP's choke, the spotlight continued to stay on the spinners. Harbhajan Singh's three wickets, Imran Tahir and Ravindra Jadeja's economical spells and the performance of the two Ashwins headlined the contest along with MS Dhoni's late finish. On a track made for the spinners, du Plessis's performance flew under the radar. It was his 38-ball 54 that gave Dhoni the platform to finish big and the spinners the additional cushion in their defence of 160.

CSK, for the first time in IPL 2019, had issues to rectify and entered a contest with some certain uncertainties; trying to identify players for two slots. And while Stephen Fleming stressed du Plessis was the obvious choice once Dwayne Bravo was ruled out, several other stars had to align for the South African to make an entry into the playing XI. Shane Watson, apart from his 44 in Delhi, hasn't been able to contribute much while Ambati Rayudu's dismal run forced the side to change things a bit. If the opening combination had fired, CSK would have turned to either Mitchell Santner or Sam Billings. And even though the latter can open, and has opened, he's looked more as a finisher in the CSK ranks.

So there was du Plessis, right at the top, with the brief to fix CSK's opening woes. Despite being at the top of the table, CSK had been the worst performing side in the powerplay before the game against KXIP. They had scored at 6.4 runs per over - a stark contrast from their usual approach. CSK follow