“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,” du Plessis said on the official broadcast after the game. “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.

“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.”

“They were batting at a place where they were always still in front of the game even though we were pulling it back”

Faf du Plessis

“We were always a little bit behind in terms of trying to get ahead of the game,” du Plessis said. “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.

“Obviously, Dube there you could see, with the short ball, he wasn’t comfortable with that. So, just trying to expose [the weakness] and trying to get some wickets through the middle overs. But at the end, it showed it just was not enough runs.”