CSK's run chase was nothing less than a walk in the park as Devon Conway (44 off 42 balls) played the role of anchor to perfection after Ruturaj Gaikwad's whirlwind 16-ball-30
Chennai Super Kings beat Mumbai Indians by 6 wickets (Pic: AFP)
Rohit Sharma's barren run with willow continued as Chennai Super Kings broke a 13-year-old home jinx against Mumbai Indians with an easy six-wicket victory on Saturday. Team India skipper's horrid run in IPL since the last edition continued as he failed to trouble the scorer for the second match in succession with Mumbai scoring a below-par 139 for 8 against an inspired performance from the CSK pace and seam troika of Deepak Chahar (2/18 in 4 overs), Man of the match Matheesha Pathirana (3/15 in 4 overs) and Tushar Deshpande (2/25 in 4 overs).
The chase was nothing less than a walk in the park as Devon Conway (44 off 42 balls) played the role of anchor to perfection after Ruturaj Gaikwad's whirlwind 16-ball-30. The win was completed in 17.5 overs and CSK leapfrogged to second place behind Gujarat Titans in the points table.
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Skipper MS Dhoni scored the winning runs much to the delight of the adoring crowd at Chepauk. The last time CSK won against MI at Chepauk was in 2010, even before India had won the ODI World Cup under Dhoni. For MI, it was a bad loss as they stay in sixth place with 10 points from as many games and very little margin for error after this match. But what will certainly both MI is their skipper's prolonged lean patch as 184 runs from 10 games with five scores of less than 10 and only two scores above 40 will set some panic in the ranks.
Also Read: CSK vs MI highlights: CSK beat MI for first time at Chepauk since 2012, claim 2nd spot
But no amount of praise will be enough for Pathirana, who literally bottled the MI batters during the death overs as he didn't concede a single boundary in his four-over spell.
In the MI innings, a maiden half-century in IPL by left-handed batter Nehal Wadhera (64, 51 balls, 8x4, 1x6) and his half-century partnerships with Suryakumar Yadav (26) and Tristan Stubbs (20) helped salvage things for MI, which lost three wickets by the third over and reach 139 for 8.
After opting to bowl, CSK bowlers left MI in disarray, reducing the opposition to 16 for 3 by the end of the third over.
Chahar picked up the wickets of Ishan Kishan (7, 9 balls, 1x4) and MI skipper Rohit Sharma (0, 3 balls) while Tushar Deshpande provided the first breakthrough by removing the dangerous Cameron Green, getting him bowled for 6 (4 balls, 1 four).
MI lost three wickets in space of 7 deliveries whilst scoring only 1 run and looked in deep trouble before Surya (26, 22 balls, 3x4) and Wadhera began the rescue act.
Pathirana, who seems to be getting better with every game, gave away 2 runs in the 18th over and 5 runs in the final over as CSK strangled Mumbai Indians with pace, for a change. The MI batters could not get away the slinger from Sri Lanka in a modest performance.
(With PTI inputs)
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