CSK starts with a bang; beats MI by 5 wickets in the opener

Chennai Super Kings (CSK) had an ideal start to the IPL-13, which commenced in UAE yesterday, by comfortably beating defending champion Mumbai Indians (MI) by five wickets. This is the 8th time in IPL that MI had lost its opening match.

Arch rivals and last year’s finalists clashed in the inaugural match. CSK won the toss and put MI into bat. MI had a decent start, but lost its skipper and star player Rohit Sharma cheaply (12) in the fifth over. de Kock fell soon after with a brisk 33 of 20 balls. Suryakumar Yadav and Saurabh Tiwary steadied the innings, but Yadav fell for 17.

Despite a decent start, MI squandered the initial momentum to fold up for a mere 162 in their 20 overs. MI stood at 121/3 in 14 overs, but lost six wickets in six overs for just 42 runs, which was not good enough to test CSK’s batting strength. Though CSK’s ground-fielding was off-target, du Plessis took 3 catches out of which the catch to dismiss Tiwary was the stand-out one.

Though CSK’s pacers Lungi Ngidi, Deepak Chahar and Sam Curran were wayward in their initial spells, all of them made up by picking up wickets in their second spells which helped in stemming the run-flow. Ravindra Jadeja’s two-wickets – of a well-set Tiwary and a dangerous Hardik – started it all for CSK, which started gaining control from the 15th over.

When Ngidi had Pollard nicking to MSD in the 17th over, it was all over for MI as its later order batters could do very little against some disciplined bowling by CSK’s pacers. A target of 163, though considered a par score, wasn’t enough for MI, as it turned out later.

CSK had a miserable start, losing Shane Watson in the very first over when Boult castled him with a slower ball. In the very next over, Murali Vijay was adjudged LBW to Pattinson; for some strange reasons, Vijay didn’t opt for DSR which would have saved him as the ball was clearly not heading towards the stumps.

Rayudu and du Pleassis stitched together a strong and dominating 115-run partnership in 84 balls for the third wicket, which set up the match for CSK. Rayudu was the dominant partner, hitting sixes at will against Bumrah and Deepak Chahar, thus keeping the score-board ticking while du Plessis, not lagging behind, remained a willing second-fiddle to him.

MSD sprung a surprise by not taking the field after Rayudu fell and instead sent all-rounders Jadeja and Sam Curran up the order to test their match-fit status. Both fared not badly, with Curran hitting two huge sixes and a four in his 18. MSD’s fans would have felt disappointed as he just faced two balls and let du Plessis hit the winning runs off Boult.

MI: 162/9 off 20 overs

CSK: 166/5 off 19.2 overs

Man of the match: Ambati Rayudu

Images Courtesy: IPLT20.COM BCCI