Brief Score: Chennai Super Kings (208 for 5 in 19.2 overs) beat Lucknow Super Giants (203 for 8 in 20 overs) by five wickets in Chennai on Sunday. Scorecard | Highlights
Chennai had been waiting for this day for eight years. Despite seeing highs and lows in recent seasons, they wanted Vijay — Vijay in a 180-plus chase, which had eluded them through two IPL titles and countless near-misses. They had lifted the trophy twice in that period without once chasing a target beyond 180. But in the era of Impact Players, CSK’s approach had begun to look dated.
On Sunday, the much-awaited Vijay arrived, and it came with a six-hitting show from Urvil Patel. And it came at Chepauk, a few kilometers away from where another Vijay finally arrived.
CSK chased down 204 with four deliveries to spare, securing their first 180-plus chase since April 2018. The two crucial points pushed them to fifth spot with six wins from 11 matches, throwing them into the increasingly frantic mid-table scramble for playoff places.
More than the points, though, this win matters for what it breaks. The 180-plus chase has been a mental block, a ghost that has followed CSK through seasons of otherwise solid cricket. On Sunday, they exorcised it.
For Lucknow Super Giants, it was a tough pill to swallow. They had looked well on course for 220-plus after Josh Inglis’s stunning 85 off 33 balls set the tone at the top. LSG were 112 at the end of the ninth over — and then Jamie Overton’s three-wicket haul and Noor Ahmed’s miserly spell quietly dismantled their momentum through the middle overs.
URVIL ARRIVES IN STYLE
But the real story was Urvil, who hit the joint-fastest fifty in the history of IPL and finished with 23-ball 65.
The 27-year-old from Gujarat, has spent years building a reputation as one of domestic cricket’s most destructive big-hitters. A 28-ball hundred in the T20 format. A 41-ball hundred in List A cricket. Glimpses of that potential in a maiden CSK stint last season. Yet at the start of this year, CSK left him out. Only an injury to the prodigiously talented Ayush Mhatre opened the door. A couple of cameos earlier in the season had hinted at what was coming without quite delivering it. On Sunday, Urvil picked his moment.
He smashed five sixes in as many balls during the powerplay, launching into Avesh Khan and Digvesh Rathi with breathtaking clarity of intent. Three of those sixes came in the fifth over off Avesh — all targeted at mid-wicket, all hit with the same unhurried, loaded swing. Digvesh fared no better in his second over of the powerplay: two sixes, a boundary, then another six, as if Urvil was simply reminding the bowler of his options.
Fifty runs came in the final two powerplay overs alone. Urvil’s 42 off nine balls set CSK up at 97 for 1 at the end of six — a platform that would have felt unthinkable when Sanju Samson fell as early as the fourth over. Urvil had the opportunity to hit the fastest IPL fifty, but he “slowed down”, taking four more deliveries for the next eight runs.
That wicket had been a body blow. CSK have struggled repeatedly this season when Samson goes cheaply — the middle order, short on runs and confidence, has too often been left to bat the team out of trouble rather than push on from a position of strength. But on Sunday, Urvil made the equation simple. By the time he was done in the powerplay, the chase was already half-won in the mind.
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