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Royals survive vintage Dhoni to go top of the table
The Rajasthan Royals edged home by three runs against the Chennai Super Kings at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Wednesday, April 12, thanks to Sandeep Sharma holding his nerve against a rampaging MS Dhoni. This win put the Royals at the top of the points table, due to a higher net run-rate than the Lucknow Super Giants, who are now second.
After the early wicket of Jaiswal, Padikkal, returning to the XI, played some fluent strokes to give the Royals some momentum, before Jos Buttler joined in to take on the spinners, targeting Theekshana in particular, hammering him for 27 in two powerplay overs. After the powerplay, Buttler absolutely decimated his England teammate Moeen Ali, hitting him for three sixes in an over, and the Royals were well and truly on their way to a sizeable total. Moeen Ali wasn’t having the best day, going on to drop a catch, and missing a run-out too.
The inevitable spin strangle had to happen. If not Moeen, it was Jadeja who brought it all to a screeching halt. The experienced spinner picked up Devdutt Padikkal and Sanju Samson in the same over, bringing in his India spin-twin, Ravichandran Ashwin, who was later dropped by Moeen Ali. The spin strangle was certainly working against Ashwin, who struggled to get going, even though he compensated for it by smashing Akash Singh for two sixes, and then holed out to mid-off later in the same over. However, Buttler had survived all of this, and the threat of him going bonkers at the death loomed.
Moeen Ali, smashed into oblivion by Buttler earlier in the day, cut short Buttler’s innings, knocking him over before he could cut loose at the death, and redeeming himself to some extent. Wickets kept falling at the other end, decelerating the scoring rate, but Shimron Hetmyer dealt a few lusty blows to lift the Royals to 175-8.
The early wicket of the in-form Gaikwad had to be a reason to panic, but that’s simply not how CSK does things. Rahane and Conway laid the platform, albeit falling behind on the required rate, motoring along at 7.5 rpo in the powerplay. The pair found it difficult to pile on the pressure, struggling to regularly find the boundary, the required rate eclipsing the current rate at every stage.
It was always going to be CSK’s spinners vs. RR’s spinners. And the trigger was the dismissal of Ajinkya Rahane, who was trapped in front by Ashwin, trying to sweep. Conway was joined by Dube at the crease, and they both looked less than fluent at the crease, as the required rate touched the 10rpo mark in the 12th over. The next three overs, however, saw a dramatic middle-order collapse, thanks to some skilful spin bowling by the Royals, getting rid of Rahane, Dube, Moeen, Rayudu, and Conway, in a collapse that read 5-35. This brought MS Dhoni to the crease, joining Ravindra Jadeja.
CSK needed 63 off 30. The spinners were all over them. CSK’s number 8 had come in to bat in his 200th game as the franchise’s skipper. The experienced duo played out the spinners and got it down to 40 off the final 2 overs.
Jadeja targeted Jason Holder and hammered him for two sixes and a four in a 19-run over, setting it up for a classic MS Dhoni finish in the final over. Sandeep Sharma was pushed into the cage with Dhoni in the final over, with 21 to win, and the pressure certainly got to the seamer, as he dished out two wides. After nailing a yorker, with 19 required off 5, MS Dhoni picked two low full-tosses (attempted yorkers) and despatched them for sixes to bring it down to 7 off 3. It was then that Sharma gathered himself and bowled three inch-perfect yorkers while also changing around his angle and closed out the game, surviving a last-over Dhoni scare. In the process, he got his side to the top of the table, but denied the home crowd a fairy-tale finish on the occasion of MS Dhoni’s 200th game as CSK captain.
The Chennai Super Kings have a 4-day break, as they head to Bangalore to face the Royal Challengers Bangalore at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on Monday (April 17), hoping to get into the top four with another W in their account. The Rajasthan Royals will travel to Ahmedabad to face the defending Champions Gujarat Titans on Sunday (April 16), in a bid to continue their winning streak.
Brief scores:
Rajasthan Royals 175-8 in 20 overs (Jos Buttler 52, Devdutt Padikkal 38, Ravindra Jadeja 2-21) beat Chennai Super Kings 172-6 in 20 overs (Devon Conway 50, MS Dhoni 32*, Ravichandran Ashwin 2-25, Yuzvendra Chahal 2-27) by 3 runs
Some 360 bodies have been recovered and more than 1,400 people are missing across Nepal and China’s Tibet region after a huge collapse of mud and rock into a Himalayan river triggered catastrophic flooding across local towns and valleys, authorities have said.
Rescue teams waded through mud on Thursday searching for the missing, as authorities in Nepal said at least 359 people have been killed there.
At least three people have died in the neighbouring Tibet region.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang arrived at the mudslide site in Tibet on Thursday afternoon to “guide emergency rescue and relief work” a day after the disaster, state media reported.
Nepalese police and tourism officials said that more than 500 foreigners were among 910 people missing in Nepal.
Among the missing are tourists from more than two dozen countries: 177 are from India, 63 from the United States, 34 from Australia, 33 from the United Kingdom, and 25 from Canada.
Beijing’s foreign ministry also said nearly 100 Chinese nationals were among the missing in Nepal.
In Tibet’s Gyirong county, 558 people are reported missing, including 260 foreign nationals, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.
Search and rescue operations are proving to be a “massive challenge” as just simply “getting to the affected areas … to try and recover the survivors”, is proving to be extremely difficult as the roads and bridges there have suffered extensive damage, said Al Jazeera’s Minelle Fernandez, reporting from the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu.
[Aljazeera]
India 503/9 decl (Devdutt Padikkal 117, Dhruv Jurel 115; Asitha Fernando 4-106, Prabath Jayasuriya 2-132) drew with Sri Lanka 290 (Sonal Dinusha 103, Pasindu Sooriyabandara 80; Prasidh Krishna 3-52, Manav Suthar 3-85) and 429/9 f/o (Sonal Dinusha 133*, Pasindu Sooriyabandara 92; Ravindra Jadeja 3-94, Manav Suthar 3-121)
Asif Khan the UAE batter, has been banned for 15 months after admitting to having tested positive for a banned substance – “a metabolite of mesterolone” – in an out-of-competition test conducted in September 2025, the ICC said in a statement on Thursday.
The statement said that Asif, 36, “had admitted the violation” of Article 2.1 of the ICC’s anti-doping code and accepted the period of ineligibility “pursuant to a case resolution agreement entered into with the World Anti-Doping Agency and the ICC”, which means there is no right to appeal on the part of the player.
The sanction is effective from September 8, 2025 and will run until December 7, 2026.
“Asif may return to training with a team or use the facilities of a club or other ICC Member organisation from 8 October 2026 but will only be eligible to play from 8 December,” the statement added. “The player’s individual results from 8 September 2025 until his provisional suspension on 29 December 2025 have been disqualified, along with all resulting consequences, including the loss of any medals, points, prize money or prizes.”
Asif, a former Pakistan Under-19 cricketer, made his UAE debut in March 2022 in an ODI against Oman in the ICC’s Cricket World Cup League 2. He turned out in 38 ODIs and 56 T20Is between then and September 2025.
The last three of those T20Is, against India, Oman and Pakistan in the T20 Asia Cup in 2025, came after September 8, and will be removed from his record.
[Cricinfo]
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