Mumbai Indians 116/0 (Kishan 68*, de Kock 46*) crush Chennai Super Kings 114 /9 (Curran 52, Boult 4-18, Bumrah 2-25, Rahul Chahar 2-22) with 10 wickets victory. Trent Boult adjudged as man of the match for his IPL career best bowling performance.
Chennai Super Kings and the Mumbai Indians played IPL 2020 season opener on September 19th, the Chennai Super Kings clinched a five-wicket win against the Mumbai Indians. The return fixture between the two rivals with more than two thirds of the league stage gone showed us how divergently the tournament has gone for each side.
The Super Kings had made a host of changes, bringing back Ruturaj Gaikwad and N Jagadeesan and handing Imran Tahir his first game of the tournament, but none of those bore much effect.
Mumbai was without Captain Rohit Sharma for tonight’s clash, who sitting out with a hamstring strain. Under Pollard Captaincy, The defending champions crushed their archrivals Super Kings by 10 wickets in 12.2 overs.
Pollard won the toss and elected to bowl first, what proved to be a excellent decision from West Indies ODI Captain. Trent Boult and Jasprit Bumrah wrecked the Super Kings top order after putting them in, with high-quality, accurate seam bowling. The Super Kings floundered to 3 for 4 in the third over, the second-lowest score at four wickets down in IPL history. That was only one of the lows that the Super Kings touched – and there was no coming back from a powerplay score of 24 for 5, the third-most wickets lost in a powerplay ever.
Boult struck in his first two overs, Bumrah took two in two balls in his first over. Boult would go on to take one more powerplay wicket, and ended the Super Kings innings by getting his fourth for a career-best 4/18 in the IPL. England all-rounder, Sam Curran – back to No.7 in the batting order was the lone point of resistance for the Super Kings with a well-compiled 52 of 47 balls, but all he could do was ensure the total went into triple figures.
Rahul Chahar continues his impressive form with the ball, the young leg spinner claimed 2 wickets including big fish MS Dhoni in his 4 over spell and conceded 22 runs.
In the absence of captain & opening batsman Rohit Sharma, Mumbai sent young Kishan to partner de Kock at the top and he promptly smashed the bowlers around in his 68 not out off 37, while de Kock played the ideal supporting role to his young partner with unbeaten 46 runs in 37 balls.
With a clinical bowling display and followed it up with a dominant opening stand between Ishan Kishan and Quinton de Kock, Mumbai picked up 7th win and joined the Delhi Capitals and the Royal Challengers Bangalore on 14 points, but with the best net run rate to top the table.
Post-Match Comments :
Trent Boult, Man of the Match:
“New franchise, different personnel, it’s been exciting to be out there playing [in this global situation]. I think it was all pretty natural stuff, pitch the ball up, was nice to get some assistance. I’ve been lucky to get the first over so if it’s going to swing, it’s going to be up front. The wickets are becoming a lot slower and lot drier. I think it just comes down to accuracy.”
Kieron Pollard, Captain of Mumbai Indians:
On his Captaincy ?
“It’s part and parcel of it, sometimes you don’t actually have to be a leader to be a leader, I know a thing or two. So it was just a matter of me stepping in and it came off tonight.”
On Comfortable win ?
“It was just matter of making right decisions, not giving them freebies. We wanted to bowl them out under 100 but Sam batted well. I think it was a total team effort. Two-three wickets early puts you in the game and to get 4-5 is fantastic And then the openers going out and finishing off and not leaving any uncertainty was good. We want to finish top two and it’s a matter of getting the points and then think about the opponents [and NRR, and such].”
On Scope for further improvement ?
“There’s always room for improvement, myself making some mistakes on the field, guys not being aware in certain situations. Maybe it’s no technical, but it’s things you need to speak about.”
Ishan Kishan on his explosive Batting:
“I was just trying to be positive. These type of totals are tricky. We are always busy when I’m batting with Quinny, and it’s good to bat with him because I get to learn from him, improvisation and all. In the off season I did a lot of hard work on my grounded shots because it’s not easy for new batsmen to come in and start hitting. This match was really important for us because CSK is a very experienced side and it’s never an easy game against them.”
MS Dhoni, Captain of Chennai Super Kings:
on losing by 10 wickets for the first-time in IPL history ?
“It does hurt. What you need to see is what are the things that are going wrong. Specially this year, it hasn’t been our year. Whether you lose by 8 or 10 wickets, it hardly matters, but where we are at this stage of the tournament, it does hurt. What you need to see is where we actually went wrong, right from the second game. It was more about the bowling. Rayudu got injured, the other batsman were maybe not there 200% and in cricket when you’re going through a tough phase, you need a bit of luck. The games we wanted to bat first, we haven’t won the toss, and there’s no dew and all of a sudden when we bat first there’s dew. Whenever you’re not doing well, there can be a 100 reasons, but one of the main things you ask yourself is whether you’ve played to the potential you’ve got no matter the conditions. When you put a good team on paper, have we done enough to back up the stats? And this year we haven’t. “
On his own battling struggles and importance of remaining games :
“Cumulatively there have been batting failures. It’s part and parcel, you can’t always think the result will go your way. You try to do the toughest thing, even when you’re hurting, you try to smile and take it on the chin. I feel the boys have done that, they’ve tried to perform. I think it’s important for us to have a clear picture of next year. There are lots of ifs and buts – auction, where the venues will be. The coming three games will be an ideal opportunity to give platforms. See some of the youngsters in preparation for the next year, see who will bat and who bowls at the death and soaks the pressure. A few more who are on the bench will get games in the coming three games.”
