England's World Cup-winning captain Eoin Morgan labelled Chennai Super Kings skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad as a "classy player" following his scintillating performance with the bat against Kolkata Knight Riders in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024.
CSK continued domination at their fortress as they cruised home without really breaking a sweat, ending KKR's unbeaten run in this edition of the IPL. While chasing a sub-par total of 138, Chennai skipper Gaikwad remained unbeaten at 67 as he slammed the winning runs for the team. He paced his knock according to the requirements of the chase and found the fence to score the winning runs for the hosts. While speaking to JioCinema, Morgan heaped praise on Gaikwad and believes that his knock will give him confidence in his game. "This innings will build a huge amount of belief and confidence for him in his game. Playing an innings like this, early in the tournament will give him a lot of reassurance on his decision making and pass on a message to the team. He is a classy player, we have seen that for a long time now and it is great to see him in such touch. He had a great game, right from the toss to captaincy decisions, getting the spinners on after the powerplay, he was exceptional today," Morgan said. Recapping the match, Gaikwad won the toss and elected to bowl first and the bowlers proved his decision successful as Ravindra Jadeja's outstanding spell of 3/18 restricted the KKR to 137/9 in 20 over. The three wickets each were snapped by Jadeja and Deshpande in their spells of four overs where they conceded 18 and 33 runs respectively. Chasing the target of 138, Gaikwad (67) then anchored the chase with an unbeaten half-century, while Shivam Dube blasted 28 off 18 balls to give CSK their third victory of the season and break KKR's winning streak. (ANI)
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