Chennai Super Kings bowler Tushar Deshpande said they “badly” wanted to win against Punjab Kings after the team’s 28-run victory in the IPL match in Dharamshala on Sunday.
Deshpande claimed two wickets and gave away 35 runs in his four-over spell as Chennai, who made 167 for nine, restricted Punjab to 139 for nine.
“I’m very happy today as it was a low-scoring game. This was the game we wanted to win badly,” Deshpande said.
Batting first, CSK lost their wickets at regular intervals, but fighting knocks from Ravindra Jadeja (43), Ruturaj Gaikwad (32) and Daryl Mitchell (30) took the five-time champions to a respectable 167/9 in their 20 overs.
Rahul Chahar (3/23) and Harshal Patel (3/24) were the pick of the bowlers for PBKS. Arshdeep Singh got two wickets while Sam Curran got a wicket too.
In reply, PBKS lost two wickets early, with Deshpande (2/35) striking for Men in Yellow, but Prabhsimran Singh (30) and Shashank Singh (27) helped them recover with a 53-run partnership.
However, Ravindra Jadeja (3/20), Mitchell Santner (1/10) and Simarjeet Singh (2/16) helped CSK make a stunning comeback and restrict Punjab to 139/9 in their 20 overs.
Jadeja received the ‘Player of the Match’ award for his all-round performance.
Deshpande said the pitch in Dharamsala was a bit slow.
“It was a crunch game for us and to start well was very important. Dharamshala at high altitude the ball does something and my job at the front was to take wickets and it went well today,” he said.
“It was a bit slow, the pitch was quite stopping a bit. If you hit the length hard, it was not easy to hit the horizontal bat shots so we just backed our length and kept it simple. Just tried to hit the top of off with the new ball.”