Indian Premier League (IPL) 2019 opener was expected to be a run-fest between Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) at the M.A.Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai (Chepauk) on March 23 (Saturday). It was looked upon as a faceoff between India's dynamic leaders in the form of MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli, but it became a one-sided contest wherein home side CSK adapted better than RCB on a slow and sluggish surface at Chepauk to prevail with 7 wickets in hand and 14 balls to spare.

Electing to bowl first, Dhoni-led CSK made amends on a surface which stayed slow throughout the proceedings of the match and made it difficult for run-scoring. As a result, only Parthiv Patel crossed double figures from the RCB camp. Harbhajan Singh, Ravindra Jadeja, and Imran Tahir wreaked havoc of a famed batting lineup. In reply, CSK also found it tough and struggled to amass 71 runs, target set by RCB, in 17.4 overs. Ambati Rayudu's 28 came off 42 balls, Kedar Jadhav struck at a strike rate of 68.42 whereas Jadeja completely struggled from his end.

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Despite the easy victory, skipper Dhoni was left unimpressed by the nature of the surface on offer at Chepauk. He clearly disapproved of the pitch and called for a change in the post-match presentation. On being asked if he expected such a track, the 37-year-old stated, "No not really, I wasn't sure about the wicket. We played a practice match on this wicket and it was a high scoring match, but usually, in practice matches, we score 30 runs more than a normal match. But we were really surprised by how slow the wicket was. The wicket definitely needs to be much better, even with dew it was spinning big. 80, 90, 100 is really low-scoring and if you have genuine spinners in your lineup you can create a lot of trouble. Other teams have good spinners as well and this isn't the pitch we are looking forward to," added the wicketkeeper-batsman.

Even RCB skipper Kohli was surprised by the pitch. He accepted that their batsmen were outfoxed by CSK's spin trio but lamented that it is better to start off the campaign in this manner than to have such an encounter in the latter stages of the tournament.

From here on, CSK travel to the national capital to play Delhi Capitals (DC) at Feroz Shah Kotla, New Delhi on March 26 (Tuesday). On the other hand, RCB will hope for a turnaround at home when they host Mumbai Indians (MI) at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru on March 28 (Thursday).

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