Jos Buttler led from the front by scoring an quickfire unbeaten 70, as Rajasthan Royals registered their fourth win of the tournament by defeating the Chennai Super Kings by 7 wickets in Abu Dhabi on Monday.
After winning the toss and electing to bat first, Chennai started poorly by losing the in form Faf du Plessis to Jofra Archer in the third over.
Shane Watson having scored couple of boundaries off Kartik Tyagi, was caught by Rahul Tewatia at shortish mid wicket for 8.
Things went from bad to worse as Sam Curran and Ambati Rayudu departed within 2 overs of each other to leave CSK reeling at 56 for 4.
Captain MS Dhoni along with Ravindra Jadeja resurrected the innings with a 51 run stand for the fourth wicket, before the former was run out by Archer for 28.
Jadeja remained unbeaten on 35, as CSK ended up with a modest total of 125/5 in their 20 overs.
Chasing 126, Ben Stokes got Rajasthan Royals off to a flying start by scoring three boundaries early on in his innings, before he chopped a Deepak Chahar delivery onto his stumps for 19.
Robin Uthappa failed to get going as he was dismissed by Josh Hazlewood cheaply.
Sanju Samson’s lean patch with the bat continued, as Dhoni took a brilliant catch diving to his left off Chahar for a duck.
The pair of Buttler and skipper Steve Smith ensured that there were no further hiccups, as the duo added an unbroken 98 run stand for the fourth wicket to take the Royals to an emphatic seven wicket win.
Rajasthan reached the target with 15 balls to spare. Deepak Chahar was Chennai’s best bowler with figures of 2/18.
With this victory, Rajasthan Royals climbed to fifth position with eight points from 10 games.
Jos Buttler was declared the Player of the Match, for his unbeaten 48-ball 70.