A clinical Chennai Super Kings defeated Kolkata Knight Riders by 32 runs in the IPL 2026 match in Chennai on Tuesday thanks to spinner Noor Ahmad.
At the M A Chidambaram Stadium, Ahmad took 3/21 as KKR finished on 160/7 while chasing CSK’s 192/5.
None of the top six batters scored more than 30 runs, therefore the KKR batsmen once again had a poor performance. Australian Cameron Green was removed for a first-ball duck to Ahmad, adding to his agony.
KKR is at the bottom with no wins from their first five games, while CSK won their second straight game.
Earlier, riding on the spin troika of Sunil Narine, Anukul Roy, and Varun Chakaravarthy, KKR put on one of their best bowling performances to restrict CSK to 192/5.
Off-spinner Narine (1/21 in 4 overs), slow left-armer Anukul (1/21 in 3 overs), and Varun (0/26 in 3 overs) gave just 68 runs in the 10 overs they sent down cumulatively while taking two wickets after Sanju Samson (48 off 32 balls) and Ayush Mhatre (38 off 17 balls) took the score to 72/2 at the end of the powerplay.
The KKR spinners were solely responsible for CSK’s meager 120 runs at less than nine runs per over in the 14 overs that followed the Powerplay. In order to make things challenging, Kartik Tyagi (2/35 in 4 overs) bowled quickly in the late 140s and combined it with pace off deliveries outside of the batter’s arc.
Sarfaraz Khan (23 off 18 balls) once again showed his cheeky cricketing skills in a half-century plus stand, and Dewald Brevis (41 off 29 balls) showed flashes of his talent, but CSK was at least 20 runs shy of a par score on this surface.
Samson opened the game with three boundaries, one of which was a streaky one off Vaibhav Arora’s first over. In addition to striking a few boundaries, U-19 World Cup winning skipper Mhatre immediately raised the stakes with back-to-back sixes off Cameron Green.
A “Nataraja Shot” behind square in the vein of Kapil Dev would be the most notable. Over mid-wicket, he also blasted another open-chested six. Samson played a supporting role at that phase, but Mhatre’s knock actually gave the CSK innings the necessary pace.
Even though his innings was far from flawless, he did demonstrate his skill with one straight six off Kartik Tyagi, who later broke Samson’s defense with a quick 148.1 click off-cutter.
The KKR trio of Anukul, Narine, and Chakravarthy found enough purchase to stop run-scoring after the conclusion of powerplay, and Tyagi superbly matched them. The Chepauk track was two-paced, with the odd ball sticking and coming into bat late.
