It surprised many when the Chennai Super Kings captain MS Dhoni won the toss in the IPL final and opted to bat on the Eden Gardens pitch against the Mumbai Indians, which was ideal for batting. CSK did manage to send back Parthiv Patel early, thanks to Faf de Plessis’s fine athleticism.
But from there, it was Mumbai all the way. Captain Rohit Sharma (50) led from the front along with Lendl Simmons (68) to guide Mumbai to a score of 202 for five in 20 stipulated overs.
Chennai will have to come out with a special performance to beat this score and become the IPL champion for the third time. Only once, 200 plus run mark was successfully chased at the Eden Gardens before.
As far as Mumbai are concerned, they were in complete cruise control after the Rohit-Simmons pair made full use of a perfect batting track and punished even the good balls. They also shared an important 119-run stand for the second wicket.
This partnership cost CSK dearly. The CSK spinners were all over the place. It didn’t look like the same side, which had displayed some sharp bowling and fielding against most of the IPL teams this season.
It was only Ashish Nehra who looked the best and later on Dwayne Bravo took the wicket of Rohit to apply brakes on Mumbai’s scoring. Till the 12 over of the match, Rohit’s team was scoring at a rate of 10 runs per over.
Initially, Rohit did live dangerously but when you are playing a big final in your favourite ground, you tend to worry less about the fear of getting out. It was his knock that gave a very good momentum to the Mumbai team.
After winning eight of their last nine matches, the Mumbai batsmen had a confidence in every short they played. After Rohit and Simmons got out, Kieron Pollard and Ambati Rayudu made use of the momentum and their late charge made it difficult for CSK bowlers to come back into the match. They made 36 runs apiece.
