Ruturaj Gaikwad and Faf du Plessis ⁠— amazing data on how the two openers led CSK to IPL 2021 championship

Chennai Super Kings went on to grab their fourth Indian Premier League title, beating runners up Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) by 27 runs in the finals in Dubai.

Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni found the real edge in his openers, which included the 24-year old Ruturaj Gaikwad who’s burst into the scene with a flurry of runs off relatively orthodox batting shots but, nevertheless, scoring at the plucky pace characteristic to Twenty20 (T20) cricket. Gaikwad is the youngest player to be the highest run scorer in a single season of the IPL. He is not part of the Indian squad picked for the upcoming T20 world cup.


Gaikwad and his South African partner Faf Du Plessis have scored more than half, 56% to be specific, of the runs scored by Chennai Super Kings in the last nine matches, the second leg of the tournament played in the United Arab Emirates.

The two of them together continued their form into the finals against KKR scoring 50 runs at the end of the six-over powerplay, a crucial period of play at the start of the innings where the fielding positions are restricted.


But rising to the big occasion, KKR openers Shubman Gill and Venkatesh Iyer beat the CSK’s score with 55 runs during the powerplay at the IPL 2021 finals. However, it wasn't enough as the franchise owned by Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan lost the match, falling 27 runs short of target.

While the match is still open for anyone to win, here’s a snapshot of how Gaikwad and Du Plessis have powered CSK into the finals:

Chennai Super Kings have scored the most runs during the powerplay compared to any other team in IPL 2021.

Faf Du Plessis was the second highest scorer in IPL 2021 at 633, just two runs short of his CSK opening partner Gaikwad.

Gaikwad scored a total of 635 runs to bag the orange cap that honours the highest run scorer in the IPL each season. He became the third batsman in CSK's history to score 600 runs in an IPL season when his side beat DC, on October 10, with 70 runs in just 50 balls.

Batter	Runs in one season	Year
Michael Hussey	733	2013
Ruturaj Gaikwad	635	2021
Ambati Rayudu	602	2018

In the finals, orange cap winner Gaikwad and Du Plessis scored 118 of the 192 runs. Du Plessis was the second highest run scorer in IPL 2021.

Kolkata Knight Riders had scored 615 runs in the power play and added another 55 in the IPL 2021 finals.

CSK lost only 15 wickets during the powerplay in IPL 2021 and also had the best run rate of 8.1 per over against spinners, which KKR was betting on with Shakib Al Hassan and Varun Chakravarthy being the team’s spearheads. Chakravarthy has taken Dhoni’s wicket three times out of the four times the two teams played before the finals.

However, Ruturaj Gaikwad’s strike against spinners was 200, the best by any batter in IPL 2021 and so he decided to lead the attack against KKR in the finals.

Going into the IPL 2021 finals, CSK had the highest number of wickets, 27, in the first six overs followed by Delhi Capitals’ 26.

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