Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings defeated Mumbai Indians by 5 wickets with 4 balls to spare.

The yellow army cruised to victory after 5 straight losses against the men in blue!

Dream11 IPL 2020 kick started with the mother of all clashes. Chennai Super Kings (CSK) beat the Mumbai Indians (MI) in the final over after losing 5 consecutive matches in the past tournament. Dhoni’s Super Kings put up a brilliant show on a Saturday night to win over the IPL 2019 winners. It was the skipper’s 100th win for the CSK franchise since the inception of IPL in 2008.

After 437 days of no cricket, Dhoni returned with a bang. After recently retiring from International cricket, he looked fitter than ever.

Picture courtesy : Business Standard

With empty stands, no display of placards and banners, it was odd not just for the players but the audience as well. The governing body did make an attempt to replicate the atmosphere by playing pre-recorded audio of fans hooting from previous matches, but it didn’t create much of a difference.

Correct decisions made by the winning captain turned the match in their favour with splendid batting performance by Ambati Rayudu (former MI player) and Faf du Plessis. Faf also contributed with 3 out-of-the-world catches down the part. Sam Curran also displayed an all-round show with both, bat and the ball.

The “opening match jinx” continued for MI as this loss was their 8th consecutive loss at their opening match. The last time they won their opening match was back in 2012 when the master blaster Sachin Tendulkar was still playing for the franchise.

“Something for us to learn. Still early days in the tournament where momentum is important. A few things for us to learn in this game, we did make a few mistakes. Hopefully we’ll rectify those and come out smarter in the next game” – Rohit Sharma, the losing captain, at the post match presentation.

Picture courtesy : Inside Sport

Mumbai Indians are known to bounce back, for they’ve won all 4 titles after losing the first few matches. However, Shaikh Zayed Stadium is the one with biggest dimensions. So hitting some shots here isn’t easy like back home at Wankhede in Mumbai.

The match started with Dhoni winning the toss and putting Rohit Sharma’s Mumbai Indians to bat first. The grassy pitch told that there’s something for the new ball. An average scoring game with 160-180 runs was on the charts.

The new normal… (at the toss)

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MI’s skipper opened the innings with a boundary alongside Quinton de Kock. But they got out cheaply at 12(8) and 33(20) respectively. At the end of 10 overs, everyone felt that Mumbai can take the total to 180-190. But after the De kock departed at 121/3, no partnership was built. Suryakumar Yadav 17(16) and Saurabh Tiwary 42(31) tried to carry on the momentum only to be put down by the bowlers in yellow. Saurabh, who was picked against Ishan Kishan was bang on business. Hardik Pandya with SR 140 and Pollard with SR 129 did hit a couple shots in the park. They made their intentions clear and targeted Lungi Ngidi to do so.

The wickets kept toppling for MI as they put 162 on board at the loss of 9 wickets. Clearly, 15-20 runs short of what they should be with such a great batting line up. They lost 7 wickets in the second half of the second innings with 3 in the death overs. Scoring just 2 runs off the final ball, Mumbai Indians put up 162 for 9 on board with CSK to chase it down at the asking rate of a little above 8 runs per over.

Mumbai Indian’s Rohit Sharma in action

Picture courtesy : Gulf News

Meanwhile, CSK’s bowlers kept impressing. They kept hitting the right line and lengths. CSK took advantage of the pitch and the outfield. It was a Faf-ulous show for Faf du Plessis took 3 brilliant catches at the boundary to dismiss Tiwary, Hardik and Rahul Chahar. While in his lucky headband, Sam Curran joined the party and took 2 catches to dismiss Rohit early in the innings and then SKY. Sam also played decently with the ball to give CSK a breakthrough by taking de Kock’s wicket who seemed dangerous in the powerplay. Bringing back Piyush Chawla to the franchise also proved to be a good pick. He dismissed Rohit early on in the innings with his smart bowling.

In the second innings, Mumbai came back hard. They attacked early and dismissed both the openers Murali Vijay and Shane Watson in the first 12 balls itself. Perhaps, Vijay was plumbed off James Pattinson, result of bad decision by the on-field umpire S. Ravi.

Ambati Rayudu and Faf du Plessis took control of the match. Both of them hit half centuries to chase down the scoreboard. They put up a good partnership of more than 100 runs. This shows the strength in Chennai’s batting line up and the way these two batsman controlled the innings speaks volumes. Panic and CSK don’t go hand in hand. The Captain’s coolness sweeps through the players.

Picture courtesy : India Today

Mumbai Indians could have beaten Rayudu early on if they hadn’t missed opportunities after opportunities. Rohit’ team failed to field tightly and kept falling short of catches. They also gave away easy runs with sloppy fielding. This in turn helped CSK build their inninings. The men in blue couldn’t build any pressure on the batters.

After Rahul Chahar’s unorthodox bowling approach, Rayudu got out after making 71 runs from 48 balls. The gun of CSK Ravindra Jadeja came out to bat when his team needed just 29 of 18 balls. Hitting the gaps well, he got off the mark with the boundary. He was soon plumbed by Krunal Pandya who pitched the outside outside off stump.

We could see Dhoni warming up in the stands and to our surprise, with less than 3 overs to go, Sam Curran was put up the order. Was it for the left and right hand combination with Faf or was it Dhoni just being Dhoni, always giving youngsters a chance to become better cricketers?

“One thing we haven’t done is giving a chance to Jadeja and Curran to come up the order and express themselves which is what we did today. It was a psychological thing of saying that okay, we have batsmen down, so we’ll send one or two of them up to hit a few” – M.S. Dhoni, the winning captain at the post match presentation.

Jasprit Bumrah, arguably the best bowler in the world right now, also fell prey to Chennai’s batting line up. He had started his spell with 4 dot balls but ended up giving 43 runs in his quota of 4 overs. Bumrah was given the 19th over to show some luck. The first ball to Curran went for a six and just the next ball was caught at covers. The English youngster departed after making 18 runs off 6 balls with one 4 and two 6s under his belt.

Picture courtesy : Business Standard

Faf’s half century came up on the 4th ball of the over. Playing with a strike rate of 119, that was Faf’s 13th IPL half century so far. Dhoni was new to the crease. The first ball that he faced could have been the last ball he faced that match if Dhoni hadn’t taken the DRS. He was caught behind but as a keeper himself, Dhoni knew that the noise was not from bat touching the ball. The next ball was a dot ball but hadn’t CSK sealed it already?

Just two balls in the final over were enough to clinch the game. The yellow army had a convincing win over the Mumbai Indians whose losing streak in the opening match continued.

Picture courtesy : Instagram/@iplt20

Rayudu was rightly awarded the man of the match award for his brilliant batting performance. He will turn 35 next week is the 8th member of the CSK squad to be 35 or plus and yet, the spirits are as high as they can get.

“I kept training in the lockdown. It was a stop-start but I was really eager” – Ambati Rayudu, MOM, at the post match presentation.

Match Summary :

Chennai Super Kings 166/5 (19.2)

Playing XI – Murali Vijay, Shane Watson, Faf du Plessis, Ambati Rayudu, Kedar Jadhav, M.S. Dhoni (C & WK), Ravindra Jadeja, Sam Curran, Deepak Chahar, Piyush Chawla and Lungi Ngidi.

Mumbai Indians 162/9 (20)

Playing XI – Rohit Sharma (C), Quinton de Kock (WK), Suryakumar Yadav, Saurabh Tiwary, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Kieron Pollard, James Pattinson, Rahul Chahar, Trent Boult and Jasprit Bumrah

Winning team – Chennai Super Kings

Man of the Match – Ambati Rayudu

CRED Power Player of the Match – Quinton de Kock

Dream11 Game Changer – Faf du Plessis

Unacademy Let’s Crack it Sixes – Ambati Rayudu

Altroz Super Striker of the Match – Quinton de Kock

The El Clasico of the cash-rich league may have come to an end but we are looking forward to another thriller between Delhi Capitals and Kings XI Punjab which is just a few hours away from now.

Picture courtesy : Inside Sport

Is it going to be Shreyas Iyer’s young blood or KL Rahul’s sheer passion for the game? Leave a comment down below and let us know who you will be supporting tonight!