Former South Africa pacer Dale Steyn has come down hard while sharing his analysis of Suresh Raina’s batting display for Chennai Super Kings (CSK) during the match against Mumbai Indians (MI) in Dubai on Sunday.
Raina had a horror show in his first outing of IPL’s second leg as he looked completely out of touch and appeared to have no clue while facing MI pacer Trent Boult. The left-handed batter was bamboozled by Boult’s bumpers and got out while trying to play a slog shot in the third over.
Steyn termed Raina a ‘school boy’ for his absolute bizarre knock. The 38-year-old reckoned that he couldn’t believe in witnessing a veteran international cricketer do what he was doing.
“Boult started really well. That ball, especially to Raina. He ran in and set that aggressive leg-side field. And you could see immediately that. He (Suresh Raina) didn’t want anything of it. He looked like a school boy cricketer at a point. I couldn’t believe this was an international player doing what he was doing, almost embarrassing that he broke his bat and got out. Had that gone for six, maybe I won’t have said that, but it is what we saw,” Steyn told ESPNcricinfo.
Notably, Raina is the third-highest run-scorer in the cash-rich league. The southpaw has accumulated 5495 runs in 201 matches with one hundred and 39 half-centuries, including 503 fours and 202 sixes.
After Raina’s departure, CSK were on the verge of a collapse before Ruturaj Gaikwad came for the rescue and played a match-winning knock of 88 off 58 to steer Super Kings to 156/6 in 20 overs.
In reply, courtesy of Deepak Chahar and Dwayne Bravo‘s excellent bowling, CSK restricted MI at 136/8 to outshine the defending champions by 20 runs.
