MUMBAI: The Chennai Super Kings’ (CSK) winning run has finally been broken as the Mumbai Indians (MI) beat them by 37 runs at the Wankhede Stadium here. More than the loss, it was the failure of the CSK batsmen to stay in the hunt while chasing the MI’s score of 170 that made it a dampener of a game.
Hardik Pandya literally ran away with the game in the death for MI as he hit a 8-ball 25. In fact, he was well supported by Kieron Pollard as well as the batsman hit 7-ball 17 with two sixes.
Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma said pacer Jason Behrendorff set the tone by sending back Chennai Super Kings (CSK) openers Ambati Rayudu and Shane Watson in his first two overs.
Sharma said that it was just what was expected from the Australia pacer.
“Jason has been great for Australia with the new ball and we all know what he is capable of. Did the same for us and his spell early on set the tone,” he said.
Rohit said that winning and keeping the winning habit going was important as MI didn’t want to get to a situation where they need to win almost all the games in the business end to qualify for the play-offs.
Chennai skipper MS Dhoni did accept that the game didn’t pan out as planned for them. “I think quite a few things went wrong for us. We started well, were right on the mark for the first 10-12 overs. Then, a few catches were dropped, a few misfields, the death overs bowling wasn’t great. We don’t have bowlers who hit the deck, it was slightly tough on them,” he admitted. — IANS
Brief Scores:
Mumbai Indians: 170-5 (Suryakumar Yadav 59, Krunal Pandya 42) defeated
Chennai Super Kings: 133-8 (Kedar Jadhav 58, Jason Behrendorff 2-22, Lasith Malinga 3-34, Hardik Pandya 3-20) by 37 runs
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