Ruturaj Gaikwad won the toss and asked the home side to bat first at the MA Chinaaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. The experienced pair of Virat Kohli and Faf Du Plessis opened the innings for RCB and put on an opening partnership of 78 runs to give Bengaluru an excellent start to the innings. Later, some quickfire knocks from Rajat Patidar (41 off 23 balls) and Cameron Green (38 off 17 balls), along with cameos from Dinesh Karthik and Glenn Maxwell, helped RCB post 218 runs in their 20 overs.
However, to qualify for the play-offs, RCB needed to win the match by 17 runs or more to overtake CSK on net run rate. This meant that both teams were looking at a target of 201 runs instead of 218. Ruturaj Gaikwad and Rachin Ravindra opened the innings for CSK, but the innings failed to take off when Gaikwad was dismissed by Glenn Maxwell in the first over of the innings.
Soon after, Daryl Mitchell departed on 4, taking CSK to 19/2 in just 2.2 overs. Ajinkya Rahane and Ravindra stabilised the CSK innings for a while and gave the yellow side some much-needed hope. However, Rahane was dismissed for 33 off 22 balls while trying to play an aggressive shot off Lockie Ferguson in the 10th over of the match.
CSK continued to lose wickets at regular intervals and were 129 for six at the 15 overs mark. At this point, CSK had MS Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja at the crease and needed 72 runs from the last 5 overs to qualify for the play-off stage. The duo went on the offensive against the RCB bowlers and pulled off an almost impossible run chase, needing just 17 runs from the last over of the match.
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