The right amount of spin, some disciplined fast-bowling and Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s masterful captaincy — when all that happens together at the MA Chidambaram Stadium at Chepauk, Chennai, it is mighty difficult for opposition teams to find their feet.

Sunrisers Hyderabad learnt that on Friday as Chennai tied up their batters from all sides, denying any space to take out their big shots. As a result, all that Sunrisers managed in 20 overs after being asked to bat was 134/7.

CSK’s Devon Conway during his unbeaten 77 against the Sunrisers on Friday. PTI picture

Chennai then comfortably reached the target with eight balls and seven wickets to spare as left-handed opener Devon Conway blasted 77 not out off 57 balls. Sunrisers are yet to win a match in Chennai.

It was always going to be a trial by spin for Sunrisers. Their openers Harry Brook and Abhishek Sharma shone briefly at the start, but it did not take Chennai long to take charge of the match.

Dhoni introduced spin in the sixth over and his tweakers kept on turning the screws even tighter on the Sunrisers batters. The run rate kept dropping and the visiting batters lost their way in search of runs. None of their batters could breathe easy, with Abhishek being their top scorer with 34 runs.

Sunrisers captain Aiden Markram (right) with Mahendra Singh Dhoni at the Chepauk on Friday, before the start of the match. PTI picture

Use of spinners

For Chennai, Ravindra Jadeja (3/22) and Maheesh Theeksana (1/27), the Sri Lankan spinner, used assistance from the wicket to build a spin maze which trapped the Sunsriers batters.

With slinger Matheesa Pathirana too putting up a disciplined effort, the boundaries simply dried up for the visiting team. From 10.3 overs to 16.3 overs, the Sunrisers batters could not hit a single boundary. That’s 36 balls, or six overs, of zero big shots in a format that runs on fours and sixes.

Sunrisers captain Aiden Markram wasn’t as wise as Dhoni in operating his spinners. First of all, he should have played England spinner Adil Rashid in this game in place of seamer Marco Jansen. Then, he delayed bringing on Washington Sundar into attack. Chepauk is Sundar’s home ground, but by the time he came on to bowl, Chennai were milking runs.

The way Mayank Markande (2/23) bowled for the Sunrisers, Markram must have realised why and where he missed a trick or two as captain.

Youth power

While the spinners excelled, mention must also be made of two young Chennai fast bowlers.

Left-armer Akash Singh (1/17), a 20-year-old from Rajasthan who plays first-class cricket for Nagaland, was impressive at the start. The other 20-year-old, Pathirana (1/22), a slinger from Kandy, Sri Lanka, is turning out to be a gun bowler in the death overs.

Two raw talents metamorphosing into fine white-ball bowlers. That is not surprising though with Dhoni, the captain and unofficial mentor, and Dwayne Bravo, the bowling coach, at work.