Chakravarthy's overs were being saved for AB de Villiers. ©BCCI/IPL
It was yet another win by a team batting first in Chennai, but the script was unfamiliar and the toss not decisive. How Royal Challengers Bangalore racked up 204/4, a total 45 runs in excess of the seasonal first-innings average here, was down to two genius innings in succession from Glenn Maxwell and AB de Villiers, but there were certainly things that the Kolkata Knight Riders could have done better.
Maxwell faced his first ball from Varun Chakravarthy when he was 30 off 19 balls. It's significant because it was Chakravarthy's double strike in the second over that saw RCB stuttering at 9/2. Both Virat Kohli and Rajat Patidar, the player he had picked to ramp up RCB's batting against spin, stood dismissed by two deliveries that spun in opposite directions. But Chakravarthy wasn't around to try for an encore through the next six overs. When he did come back, Maxwell hit his first couple of legal deliveries for a six and a four. The mystery was off the boil.
"We were trying to save his overs for when AB de Villiers arrived at the crease," KKR coach Brendon McCullum explained. "In retrospect, we probably should have bowled Varun Chakravarthy after that first over, but there were many other aspects in the game we can tidy up against a team that's clearly very confident in RCB."
That Chakravarthy's overs were being saved makes for a compelling case. On a day de Villiers scored 76* off 34 balls, he managed only 12 runs off the 9 balls he faced from Chakravarthy, not to mention that one of the two boundaries he hit was off an outside edge.
Although the match-up with Chakravarthy didn't quite stop de Villiers from staying put and helping himself to runs off other bowlers, it does reinforce the point KKR captain made after the game.
"Glenn Maxwell is a fine player but he's not their only destructive player... like we saw today. So we always need to have one or two (overs from Chakravarthy) up our sleeve to bowl at AB. You need to plan past one player," Morgan said.
Would he bowl Chakravarthy for another over if given a chance to go back? "Probably not to be honest," the KKR captain replied. McCullum clearly saw the situation differently but there were other decisions that didn't divide opinions as much.
Andre Russell has bowled two of the final three overs in all of KKR's games this season. It's been his role for a while in the side and Morgan's just sticking to a tactic that worked for him as recently as a few days ago.
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