IPL 2025: Shreyas leads PBKS to win, CSK out of playoffs

Kolkata: And so, chances of Chennai Super Kings (CSK) making the playoffs ended with a whimper. It was slim going into Wednesday’s must-win match against Punjab Kings (PBKS) but the four-wicket defeat in Chennai ended all hopes with four matches to spare.

Shreyas Iyer (72; 41b; 5x4; 3x6) made the chase of 191 look easier than it was by taking 20 runs in the 17th over off death overs specialist Matheesha Pathirana. CSK had got that far through Sam Curran’s 47-ball 88 (his highest in IPL) and his 78-run stand with Dewald Brevis but the innings was waylaid by Yuzvendra Chahal’s four-wicket haul in the 19th over, which included the season’s first hattrick.

PBKS may have defended the lowest-ever total in IPL but they have built a team whose strength lies in chasing down any target. They did with Iyer being the glue that held the innings together. He was helped by contributions from Prabhsimran Singh (54 off 36 balls) and cameos from Priyansh Arya (23 off 15) and Shashank Singh (23 off 12).

If Punjab Kings’s start was like a sharp nor’wester CSK’s powerplay was like slow summer day. It began and ended with dot balls and they lost three wickets in between.

The openers, Shaik Rasheed and Ayush Mhatre, went within one run of each other, the wickets being shared by fast bowlers Arshdeep Singh and Marco Jansen, both falling to wild swings that didn’t clear the ring on the off side. When Ravindra Jadeja fell, just when he looked to be getting in the groove hitting three fours off Harpreet Brar and one off Azmatullah Omarzai in the over before, the innings’ fifth, it looked like an early indication of another forgettable evening.

Jadeja fell trying to cut once too often. It was the fifth time Jadeja had been dismissed to spin this term. It also meant Brevis (32; 26 balls) joined Curran with CSK 48/3 after 5.5 overs and led to their most productive spell with the bat on Wednesday.

Together, they gauged the conditions and went about rebuilding the innings. Curran’s first scoring shot was a top-edged four, off Jansen, and he hit a six off Brar but it was only in the ninth over bowled by Chahal that he cut loose. Two boundaries off the first two deliveries and the over ended with a six by Brevis. All the big shots were on the leg-side and that became a theme for the evening.

Chahal’s over yielded 16 and at the halfway mark CSK were scoring at almost nine an over. This was the first time that Curran had got to double figures and maybe that explained the boisterous celebrations on getting to his half-century. A cut off Omarzai and a late improvisation to send a Jansen bouncer to the fence past the wicket-keeper showed why Brevis generates so much interest in South Africa and beyond.

Brevis was bowled first ball after the second strategic timeout by Omarzai but he had helped lay the platform for CSK to go big. Curran changed gears soon after, ruining Suryansh Shedge’s figures by taking 26 in the 16th over. There was a crunching cover-drive but the remaining boundary hits (two sixes and one four) came on the leg-side. Suddenly, CSK were going at 10 an over.

Hopes of 200 crashlanded with Chahal, who seems to have been bowled into form by Kolkata Knight Riders, getting four wickets in the 19th over, one which began with a towering six from MS Dhoni.

Dhoni went next ball trying an encore and Deepak Hooda took two off the next ball. It left Shivam Dube stranded at the other end as Hooda, Anshul Kamboj and Noor Ahmad fell off successive deliveries giving Chahal his second IPL hattrick, and the first this term.

“I was trying to ensure that batters don’t get settled,” Chahal told the official broadcaster at the innings break. It meant that from 184/5 after 18.1 overs, CSK were 186/9 and 190 all out. It was the kind of collapse that mirrored the season for CSK.