Defending champions Mumbai Indians made heavy weather of the run-chase but held their nerves in the end to beat table-toppers Chennai Super Kings by eight wickets and return to winning ways in the Indian Premier League in Pune on Saturday.
Languishing at the bottom with only one win from six matches, Mumbai Indians restricted Chennai Super Kings to 169-5, mainly built around Suresh Raina’s unbeaten 75-run innings.
Mumbai then returned to overhaul the target with two balls to spare at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium.
Rohit Sharma played a captain’s knock with a 33-ball unbeaten 56 to complete the chase after Evin Lewis (47 off 43) and Suryakumar Yadav (44) added 69 runs for the opening wicket. Rohit shared 59 runs with Lewis for the second wicket before adding another 42 off 21 balls with Hardik Pandya to take the team home.
The Raina show
Earlier, Raina (75 off 47 balls), who had missed a couple of matches due to a calf injury earlier in the season, smashed his way to an unbeaten 75 laced with six fours and four sixes after opener Ambati Rayudu set the foundation for Chennai with a 35-ball 46.
Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni also chipped in with 26 off 21 balls which was studded three boundaries and a six but Mumbai Indians bowled well in the death overs to restrict them within 170 in the end.
Mitchell McClenaghan (2/26) and Krunal Pandya (2/32) were the pick of the bowlers for Mumbai, while Hardik Pandya (1/39) also picked up a wicket. CSK were looking well set to go past 180 at one point, but the Mumbai bowlers delivered a great second half to restrict the men in yellow.
Rayudu gave a flying start to Chennai after opening his innings with a six off McClenaghan in the third ball. His partner Shane Watson, however, couldn’t stay long as his attemped slog sweep off spinner Krunal landed on the safe hands of Mayank Markande at square leg.
Raina then joined Rayudu and the duo constructed a great partnership as CSK scored 91 for 1 off 10 overs. From then on, Mumbai did well to pull things back.
In the 12th over, Krunal dismissed the dangerous Rayudu when he tried to clear the ropes with a sweep shot but ended up hitting straight to Cutting at deep mid-wicket. McClenaghan then produced a two-wicket over to send Dhoni and Dwayne Bravo back.
Raina smashed Bumrah for a six in the 19th over to take CSK across the 150-mark. The left-hander ended the innings with a six off the last ball.
A well-constructed chase
Chasing 170 to win, Yadav and Lewis gave Mumbai a good start as they scored 50-0 in the first six overs.
But Harbhajan Singh and Shane Watson then bowled a tight over each to put pressure on the Mumbai Indians and it resulted in the departure of Yadav, who tried to pull Harbhajan over deep midwicket but a brilliant catch by Ravindra Jadeja ended his innings.
Lewis then smashed two sixes off Imran Tahir to pick up 16 runs in the next over and then sent Dwayne Bravo for a boundary to take the team across the 100-mark.
In the 14th over, skipper Rohit Sharma joined the party and produced a one-handed six over long-off and then followed it up with sweep six over short fine leg off Watson.
However, Mumbai found it difficult to get boundaries and the mounting pressure saw Lewis top-edging a slower ball from Bravo as Mumbai lost their second wicket.
Needing 42 runs from 24 balls, Hardik joined Rohit as the duo narrowed the target down to 22 runs off the last two overs after the new man blasted a six off Watson.
Rohit finally blasted as many as four boundaries off the 19th over bowled by Shardul Thakur en route to his fifty as Mumbai needed just five off the last over. Hardik finally hit the winning runs off Tahir and Mumbai moved away from the bottom of the table.
What the captains said
Rohit Sharma, winning captain and player of the match: ‘Very much [alive in the tournament]. Told my boys we don’t have to do anything drastic. We getting close, just were unable to apply finishing touches. Today was perfect in all three departments. When you look back, except the Sunrisers game, we didn’t really play poorly. Need to carry the momentum forward now. Going forward, this is a combination we would like to continue with. There’s a positive atmosphere in the dressing room. It was a hard decision to keep Pollard out. He understood it. Not dismissing him completely.’
Dhoni: ‘There are matches in the league stage where a defeat makes you learn a lot. Choice of deliveries can improve when it comes to our bowling. If you keep winning, you don’t know what areas you have to work on... We were short today, 10-15 runs. MI bowled really well. Their spinners did well better than ours. [Defeats] make you humble, it’s quite early in the tournament. We’ll have to figure out how to improve in these situations.’
(With PTI inputs)
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