The second phase of the Indian Premier League 2021 has started with the game between Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings. Despite having a poor start, MS Dhoni led CSK has won the match quite convincingly.
Dhoni won the toss and elected to bat first. But his decision didn’t work as they lost a few early wickets. Later, Ruturaj Gaikwad stood strong and smashed a 58-ball 88 and helped his side post a good total of 156.
While chasing, Mumbai Indians did have a good start but lost the plot in between after losing a few wickets. Although Saurabh Tiwari scored a stable 50 in the middle-order, others couldn’t support him well and they eventually lost by 20 runs.
After the win, MS Dhoni said: “I think at 30/4, you want to get something respectable on the board and Ruturaj and Bravo got us more than what we expected. We had to bat exceptionally to get to 140, but to get to 160 was tremendous. The wicket was slightly two-paced and slow to start off with. Most of them got out to slower ones. If you come later and you want to go hard and that’s why we lost wickets. I would have tried to get into the eighth or ninth over and then take it from there.”
He continued: “You always think you could have gone harder earlier, but with wickets down, it was a risk. There’s always a catch, one batter played till the end and the others contributed well. It’s a give and take, you need to see how many fast bowlers have in the armoury and how much time they take to bowl their overs. If a fast bowler has a long run-up or wastes a lot of time, it is tough for the captains. It depends on the situation. Rayudu was smiling, so he hasn’t broken his arm. He has four days now and that should help him.”
Dwayne Bravo said: “It’s a good feeling, obviously against MI it’s the toughest team in IPL and it’s like a final playing them, always a good feeling to win. Just tried to protect myself in the last stages of CPL and when I came over here, just had one bowling session which was yesterday and happy to get 4 overs through today.
Now I bat lower down the order with the batting line-up like CSK, for me it’s just about trying to get the momentum and try to capitalize, adjust and adapt. Just try to give the best of my ability whenever I go out to bat. He (Ruturaj) has been our star player end of last season and this season and he is a quality player. Played proper cricket shots and played till the end. He has appetite for runs and it’s good to get over the line this game.”
Meanwhile, Ruturaj Gaikwad has won the Man of the Match award for his stunning knock.
After the match, he said: “Obviously one of my top innings till now. With the pressure of early wickets and with the seniors in the dressing room, I just had to grind and get the team to 130, 140 and then 150 was possible. When Mahi bhai is around and with the CSK management, once they back you, you don’t have to think much.
The SL tour and the preparation coming here did help too. Initially the ball was seaming and swinging so I had to take my chance against the spinners. Jaddu just came in and I had to take my chance and it came off well. Quinton was taking charge, and my drop at that stage could have been crucial, but luckily Deepak got him out soon after.”
Despite having a good start with the ball, Mumbai failed to restrict CSK which certainly cost them. After losing the game, stand-in captain Kieron Pollard shared his thoughts.
He said: “We must have got a partnership. You can do a lot of things differently in hindsight. Losing by 20 runs, I think that is the difference. Gave too many with the ball at the end. Their batters tried to continue the momentum throughout, we didn’t do that. We could have learnt from their mistake of losing too many wickets in the powerplay. We needed one guy to bat deep. We had a couple of soft dismissals. We can’t let that happen at this level, but we still have six games to go.”
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