Match Review

You can check out the scorecard and Match Tracker here.

After a struggling chase full of lows for Mumbai Indians, despite Rohit Sharma’s early efforts, it was the wicket of Chris Lynn in the fourth over after which the four-time champions failed to recover even a bit. After Deepak Chahar removed de Kock in the preceding over, Shardul Thakur got rid of Lynn leaving Sharma in disdain in what was a particularly difficult chase.

Highs and Lows 

The low of this game, according to me, was Jasprit Bumrah’s dismal performance in the game that helped Chennai gain advantage  with the bat. The ace-pacer bowled four wicketless overs and gave away 58 runs in Chennai’s gigantic total of 205/5.

Rating Charts

The Chennai Super Kings openers were absolutely at the top of their game right from the start, especially Shane Watson, who went smashing Jasprit Bumrah right from the start, squeezing out 14 runs from the first over. And again, Bumrah was plastered for 15 runs in the sixth over. At the end of the sixth over, the opening partnership was still intact at 56/0, with a run rate of 9.33. Watson, who started off in thumping fashion, was on a 37 off 19, while Faf du Plessis also picked up the pace, scoring his 17 at a SR of 100.

Meanwhile, the Mumbai Indians side clearly struggled in their chase of 206 right from the start. After a promising two overs, with Rohit Sharma taking charge, Mumbai lost three wickets in successive overs. The captain stood there scoring runs and watching the top-order, comprising de Kock, Lynn, and Suryakumar, fall helplessly. At the end of the powerplay, Mumbai were 43/3, with Sharma burdened with most of the responsibility.

The Chennai Super Kings batsmen accumulated a total of 83 runs for the loss of three wickets between overs 7 and 15 and the credit for the same belonged to the duo of Watson and Raina. The two batsmen fired ruthlessly at every bowler they faced, from Rahul Chahar to Hardik Pandya. There was a significant contribution from Faf (39 off 29), too, who fell in the 10th over. Hardik removed Watson in the 13th over but also conceded 12 runs and didn’t get the ball again. Meanwhile, brother Krunal’s run check worked fairly well for Mumbai. At the end of the 15th over, the scoreboard read 139/3 with Raina and Dhoni in the middle.

On the other hand, following a rather shaky and slow start, Mumbai batsmen let the game slide further away from them as regular wickets kept hurting their cause. They only managed to add 75 runs in between overs 7 and 15. It was all about the magic of the Chennai spinners, something that worked wonders for the Men in Yellow in the middle-overs. In fact, the middle-overs looked like layers of low-scoring overs sandwiched between superb overs that claimed important wickets. None of it was in favour of Mumbai, though.

There wasn’t any exceptional show of death bowling from the Mumbai Indians. It was, in fact, as bad as their start. In the powerplay overs, 56 runs were conceded with no wickets taken mostly due to Bumrah’s poor performance, and at the death, it was Bumrah again, alongside Dhawal Kulkarni, leaking runs. All in all, 66 runs were given away in the final five overs of Chennai’s innings and the bowlers managed to bag only two wickets. 

On the other hand, CSK’s death bowling was devoid of any pressure as the major damage was done in the middle-overs itself. All they had to do was to stop Mumbai, who only had three wickets in hand, from scoring another 122 runs. It was Tahir, yet again, who cleared the tail and completed his six-wicket haul. 

The end result of the game gave away how the game between the two biggest teams in the league went down. Chennai Super Kings dominated through and through, with both bat and ball, and the exceptional show of bowling by Imran Tahir, coupled with Watson and Raina’s sixes were enough to add some excitement to an otherwise boring T20 contest.