Superb Faf Du Plessis Propelled Chennai Super Kings To The Finals Of The 2018 IPL Season On This Day

The South African star Faf Du Plessis played masterstroke innings in the first qualifying match of the IPL 2018 season, which allowed Chennai Super Kings to win their third IPL title. CSK – Chennai Super had won two back-to-back titles earlier in 2010 and 2011. But this title win was a special one for the Yellow Army.

Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals were banned because their management was involved in the spot-fixing saga in the 2015 IPL season.

So these two IPL franchises were banned for the 2016 and 2017 IPL seasons, and two new teams played at their places. The two new IPL franchise teams were Raising Pune Supergiants and Gujarat Warriors.

The RPS Franchise – Rising Pune Supergiant team was the finalist of the IPL 2017 season. But they lost the match by the margin of one run against Mumbai Indians, and GL – Gujarat Lions was under the leadership of Suresh Raina. As a result, that team reached the semi-final of this cash-rich league tournament.

However, Raina’s men couldn’t defeat the orange army, Sunrisers Hyderabad, who went on to win the title in the IPL 2016 season by defeating Virat Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bangalore. 

In the 2018 IPL season, the comeback win for Chennai Super Kings was an emotional one because this Team, CSK, has some passionate supporters who were disappointed when the team was banned for two IPL seasons.

Chennai Super Kings is one of the top teams in this cash-rich league tournament. The fans of this team have yellow everywhere when CSK plays a match.

The legend of South African cricket, Faf Du Plessis, played a knock of unbeaten 67 runs from just 42 deliveries in Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium and single-handedly took the team over the line also allowed them to be in the final of that IPL season. CSK has these types of Champion players in their team, so there is the most dangerous and consistent team in this T20 tournament.

CSK started well with the ball, and they restricted Sunrisers Hyderabad for a decent total of 139 runs. But the run chase went wrong for them. It was only Faf Du Plessis who held the innings together for CSK. If Faf had not batted like that, then CSK wouldn’t have qualified for the finals that time around.

CSK didn’t get the required opening start, and the middle order didn’t show the class.  Accept for Raina no CSK batter even scored the 20 run mark in that innings. The wickets kept on tumbling for the Yellow Army, and there was no support for Faf at the other end.

The lower-order batsmen Shardul Thakur and Deepak Chachar hung in with the Protea batsman, which helped CSK chase the target down in the last over, and they won the match by two wickets.

Faf finished with unbeaten 67 runs from 42 deliveries. Du Plessis was named the name of the match because of this brilliant knock. The Protea batsman didn’t let the pressure succumb him till the end.

CSK and SRH met again in the finals of the IPL 2018 season. But in that finals, Shane Watson’s masterpiece century sealed the match for the Yellow Army, and it allowed Chennai Super Kings to become the IPL champions for the third time and the last time in the history of this tournament.    

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