Defending champions Chennai Super Kings comfortably overcame start-studded Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the opening game of the Indian Premier League on Friday at MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai as they beat them by six wickets to record a flying start to their campaign. 

It was an eye-catching all-round performance from CSK that dominated RCB after they easily chased down (174) with eight balls to spare. RCB, electing to bat, had a nice start after du Plessis scored quick (35) off (23), hammering eight boundaries. But, CSK’s Mustafizur Rahman churned out a great spell to pull out RCB batters in quick succession. 

"When you play here, you feel like you have to almost get ahead of the game a little bit in that first six overs because CSK is a very good team in the middle overs. For so many years, they squeeze you with the spinners,” du Plessis said after the game.

"Unfortunately, we lost a little bit too many wickets in that first seven overs, which meant that the guys needed to bat a little bit and stable the innings again. And, at the end, I felt we were 15 or 20 runs short on a pitch that wasn't as bad as we played in the first ten overs,” he said.

Losing their wickets inside powerplay, RCB were in a deep trouble before Anuj Rawat and Dinesh Karthik stitched a 95-run partnership to drag the side to 173/6 in (20) overs. 

"We were always a little bit behind in terms of trying to get ahead of the game. They were batting at a place where they were always still in front of the game even though we were pulling it back. We were trying to somehow find some opportunity to get wickets,” du Plessis said. 

"Obviously, Dube there you could see, with the short ball, he wasn't comfortable with that. So, just trying to expose and trying to get some wickets through the middle overs. But at the end, it showed it just was not enough runs," stated Faf.