Allrounder’s 60 lifted Punjab Kings to 180, and Super Kings fell apart in the chase
Punjab Kings 180 for 8 (Livingstone 60, Dhawan 33, Jordan 2-23) beat Chennai Super Kings 126 (Dube 57, Chahar 3-25, Livingstone 2-25) by 54 runs
Despite an early trend for sides winning while chasing, this was the third game in a row in which a total was successfully defended. Super Kings were perhaps the happier side at the halfway mark, after dragging Kings back from a score of 109 for 2 with one ball of the tenth over to go, but the signs that their innings might not be the expected stroll were when Chris Jordan, who claimed 2 for 23 with an excellent death-bowling display, noted with surprise the lack of evening dew.
Needing to go at nine an over on a Brabourne surface that had looked good for batting, Super Kings were quickly in trouble as the Kings seam attack punched holes in their top order. Kagiso Rabada, Arora and Arshdeep Singh all struck in the powerplay, and when Ambati Rayudu was acrobatically caught by another debutant, wicketkeeper Jitesh Sharma, off a vicious Odean Smith lifter in the eighth over, the game was all but over as a contest.
From 36 for 5, Super Kings were indebted to Shivam Dube’s 30-ball 57 for keeping them clinging to the tails of the asking rate. But Livingstone struck twice in two balls and when MS Dhoni was ninth out at the start of the 18th over, caught behind for 23 off 28, the jig really was up.
Livi lets fly
Picked up for a price of 11.5 crore INR (USD 1.53 million) in February’s auction, following a stellar year in T20 competitions around the world, Livingstone was still waiting for a performance to match his billing at the IPL. He finally produced under the lights in Mumbai, taking the attack back to Super Kings after wickets in each of the first two overs had left Kings 14 for 2.
Livingstone’s aggression was the chief reason for Kings posting the second-highest powerplay score of the season so far (Super Kings have conceded the top two). Left-arm swing bowler Mukesh Choudhary bore the brunt of it, conceding 34 runs from the 12 balls delivered to Livingstone – his third over alone costing 26. Three times Livingstone made room to thrashes sixes to the short leg-side boundary – one of them a 108-metre monster – while also crashing Choudhary for fours down the ground, over cover (twice) and past short third.
With Shikhar Dhawan finding his groove by taking three boundaries off Dwayne Bravo’s introductory over, Kings were up and running at 72 for 2 after six.
Livingstone’s lives
Super Kings should have removed Livingstone in the first over after the powerplay, however. Having danced down to crash Jadeja’s first ball into the sightscreen for his fourth six, he sliced the final ball of the over straight to short third – but Rayudu, despite having time to settle under it, shelled a simple chance. In the next over, a thin edge down the leg side off Dwaine Pretorius was held by Dhoni, only for the keeper to ground the ball in his glove tips as he dived to his left.
Livingstone duly brought up his first IPL half-century, from 27 balls, a couple of overs later, via a top-edged swat at Bravo that sailed over fine leg. The Englishman’s previous highest score in the competition was 44 off 26 balls, made in his second match for Rajasthan Royals in 2019, and he had gone nine innings without passing 25 since then.
More to follow
Alan Gardner is a deputy editor at ESPNcricinfo. @alanroderick