Royals do the double over CSK
A comprehensive victory, and Royals go back into the group of three at the top of the table with 10 points each. They have the best net run rate of that trio: 0.939. With this win, they've also made it 4 out of 4 while batting first.
And you could see why they're so good batting first. Their openers are the quickest off the blocks in the tournament, and Yashasvi Jaiswal made an outstanding 77 that began with three fours in the first over. They endured a bit of a wobble midway through their innings, but Dhruv Jurel has been a great find this season, and he and Devdutt Padikkal took them past 200, making them the first side to ever do this at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium.
And Royals may not have had Trent Boult today, but with Adam Zampa coming in, they had the best spin trio in the competition. Even though Yuzvendra Chahal only bowled two overs (there were two left-handers in the middle for large parts of the innings), the other two did brilliantly, with Zampa picking up three wickets and R Ashwin two to effectively seal the win. Moeen Ali and Shivam Dube flickered briefly, but by then the asking rate was beyond CSK.
A terrific game for the Royals, and relief after back-to-back defeats. A lot of teams might be in a quandary when they face Royals: will they want to chase, which is what most teams prefer, or will they look to bat first and stop Royals from doing what they do best?
MS Dhoni makes a good point post-match, bringing up all the boundaries Royals scored off edges towards the end of their innings. He believes Royals ended up with a "par-plus" score, but the edges may have given them "at least 5-6" boundaries. Luck always plays a role in cricket, particularly in T20, and it certainly did today. You can feel for CSK even if Royals did look the better team for large parts of this game.