Brief Scores:
Mumbai Indians: 170-5 (Suryakumar Yadav 59, Krunal Pandya 42) defeated
Chennai Super Kings: 133-8 (Kedar Jadhav 58, Jason Behrendorff 2-22, Lasith Malinga 3-34, Hardik Pandya 3-20) by 37 runs
The Mumbai Indians (MI) registered their second win of the VIVO IPL 2019 when they defeated table-toppers Chennai Super Kings by 37 runs at the Wankhede Stadium last evening. Put in to bat, MI posted 170-5 and then restricted the visitors to 133-8. It would be the Super Kings’ first loss of the season.
In the evening, Deepak Chahar and Shardul Thakur got the ball to move off the surface and tested the Mumbai Indians openers. The hosts lost Quinton de Kock in the third over when he attempted to break the shackles with a pull shot but picked out the fielder next to the square-leg umpire.
Rohit Sharma (13 from 18 balls) battled hard, but Suryakumar Yadav got going almost immediately. The pair added 38 runs for the second wicket before Sharma’s painful innings came to an end; the MI skipper edged Ravindra Jadeja’s first delivery to MS Dhoni behind the stumps.
After Yuvraj Singh picked out long-off not too long after, Yadav and Krunal Pandya stitched together a 62-run partnership.
The left-handed Krunal was the aggressor in the partnership; that pair was separated when Krunal attempted to hit over the top, but miscued the hit and was caught at long-on.
Yadav reached his half-century the very next ball, but perished in the following over when he didn’t sufficiently get under Dwayne Bravo’s attempted yorker and holed out to long-on.
MI were 125-5 after 18 overs and appeared headed towards a total of 150. But Hardik Pandya, batting at number six, and Kieron Pollard, batting at number seven, had other ideas; the two all-rounders got stuck into Shardul Thakur (who bowled the 19th over) and Dwayne Bravo (who bowled the 20th over) and collected a total of five sixes. The pair scored 16 and 29 off the last two overs and helped MI to a formidable 170-5.
For CSK, Imran Tahir was the best bowler for the men in yellow. Surprisingly, even though Deepak Chahar and Ravindra Jadeja bowled well, they weren’t called on to bowl their full quota of overs; Chahar bowled three overs for returns of 1-21, while Jadeja bowled only two overs for figures of 1-10.
The Super Kings were jolted at the very beginning of their run-chase and never recovered thereafter. Ambati Rayudu fell for a first-ball duck and Shane Watson and Suresh Raina were dismissed in the first five overs.
Kedar Jadhav and MS Dhoni resurrected the innings with a 54-run partnership. That stand was broken when Dhoni was dismissed for the first time this season; he pulled a Hardik Pandya delivery put picked out Yadav at square-leg. Jadhav would be dismissed at the start of the 18th over when he edged a Lasith Malinga delivery to the wicket-keeper; he hit eight fours and a six in his 54-ball 58.
For MI, Jason Behrendorff, Malinga and Hardik Pandya shared the wickets. A word of appreciation for the three good catches one saw in the CSK innings; Pollard’s catches to dismiss Watson (at point) and Raina (deep point), and de Kock’s catch to dismiss Bravo should make the season’s best catches list. (IPL website)
