By Prakash Nair 
Chennai, May 2: Mumbai Indians came to Chepauk tonight for revenge. They left with nothing. Again.
CSK beat them by 8 wickets, chasing down 160 with nearly two overs to spare, and the most remarkable thing about the victory was how little it seemed to cost CSK. No panic, no crisis, no drama. Just Ruturaj Gaikwad batting sensibly, Kartik Sharma hitting a big six, and 40,000 people in yellow who knew the game was over before the halfway point of the chase.
For Mumbai Indians, this is now two heavy defeats to the same team in nine days. The first by 103 runs at the Wankhede. Tonight by 8 wickets at Chepauk. And the playoffs? Effectively gone.
Mumbai Bat First and Immediately Waste the Platform
Hardik Pandya had won the toss and chosen to bat, banking on the dew logic that has served other teams at Chepauk in recent weeks. The pitch played fine. The conditions were not unreasonable. And for a while, MI actually looked like they were building something.
Naman Dhir played the best innings of the night for the away side 57 off 37 balls, composed and purposeful, keeping MI afloat through a middle-order period where wickets were falling around him. Ryan Rickelton started well too, looking dangerous as he has throughout this season, before Noor Ahmad had him holing out to deep square leg for 37. Clean ball, nothing Rickelton could do about it, but MI needed far more from their most in-form batter.
That is when the wheels started coming off.
Suryakumar Yadav made 21. He looked good for a moment a late cut for four off the debutant Ramakrishna Ghosh, elegant and reassuring and then Ghosh came back and got him out. A hard-length delivery on off stump, SKY could not handle it, and there was Ghosh celebrating his maiden IPL wicket in his first-ever IPL game. The Chepauk crowd was absolutely delighted.
Tilak Varma lasted five balls. Noor Ahmad bowled a leg-break, Tilak went for a slog, mistimed it completely, and Gaikwad and Urvil Patel nearly collided going for the catch. Gaikwad held on. Another soft dismissal, another batter failing to read a situation that needed application rather than aggression.
And then there was Hardik. He batted 23 balls for 18 runs. The MI captain, in a must-win game at Chepauk, could not find a way to accelerate even with the lower order forming around him. Anshul Kamboj eventually got him cleaned him up with the kind of delivery that a batter with intent would have put away and that was effectively the end of MI’s innings as a meaningful contest.
Robin Minz chopped Kamboj on. Dhir was finally removed by Jamie Overton with a clever off-cutter, caught by Sarfaraz Khan subbing in the field with a sharp take in the ring. MI scraped to 159 for 7 off 20 overs.
It was not enough. Everyone in the ground knew it was not enough.
Kamboj finished with three wickets. Noor had two. And debutant Ghosh had announced himself to the IPL with a wicket and a stunning diving catch at deep third to send back Will Jacks early on Jacks sliced Kamboj to that region, Ghosh dived forward, and the ball stuck. What a first game.
The Chase Was Never Really a Chase
Jasprit Bumrah struck second over, removing Sanju Samson caught behind for a low score. Rickelton took the catch, Jacks had grassed the chance one ball earlier, but Bumrah got his man and for about three overs MI had a pulse.
Then Gaikwad and Urvil Patel just started batting normally and that was that.
Urvil came in and attacked immediately after Samson’s dismissal the kind of instinctive aggression that told MI’s bowlers they were not going to get a polite, cautious chase to bowl into. He hit Krish Bhagat for boundaries that felt contemptuous in their ease, and suddenly CSK were 50-odd in the powerplay and the asking rate was already below eight.
Ghazanfar got Urvil eventually dragged one onto his stumps late in the powerplay and MI probably thought they were back in it.
They were not.
Gaikwad took over. He did not look like a man who has been criticised all season for his form. He looked like a captain who knew exactly what his team needed not fireworks, just calm accumulation, good running between the wickets, and absolutely no risk. By the time he was on 44, the target was so close that Chepauk had already started celebrating. Kartik Sharma, promoted as impact player, came in and hit a six off Ghazanfar that drew a roar from the stands completely disproportionate to how the match was actually going. But that is Chepauk. That is the CSK crowd. They had been waiting for that moment all night.
CSK reached 160 for 2 in 18.1 overs. Eight wickets to spare. Gaikwad and Kartik unbeaten. The partnership between them had made what should have been a tricky-enough chase look like a Sunday afternoon knock in the nets.
The Boy From Maharashtra
There were several talking points from tonight but the one that will linger longest for neutral fans is Ramakrishna Ghosh. Twenty-something, playing his first IPL match, comes on to bowl at a ground where 31,900 people are watching and Suryakumar Yadav is at the crease. Most young bowlers would bowl defensively in that situation, hope to get through their overs without damage, and build from there.
Ghosh got SKY out. Then he took that catch off Jacks in the field a full-length dive, both hands, the ball staying in as he hit the turf. Two contributions in his first IPL game that changed the match. Stephen Fleming and the CSK coaching staff will be very pleased with themselves tonight for backing him into the XI.
Where Does This Leave Everyone
CSK have four wins from nine games now. They are climbing, slowly but with a sense of momentum and a bowling attack that is deeper than it looked three weeks ago. Gaikwad is batting. Kamboj is taking wickets consistently. The emergence of Ghosh gives them options.
Mumbai Indians needed to win five from their last six games even before tonight. They have now lost six. The math requires them to win every remaining fixture and hope other results fall their way and even that might not be enough given net run rate. Hardik Pandya’s captaincy will face the severest scrutiny of his tenure. The toss call tonight was reasonable. The execution was not. 18 off 23 from the captain in a must-win game is simply not good enough, whatever the conditions.
Rohit Sharma is still injured. MS Dhoni is still injured. And CSK have beaten MI twice in nine days with a combined margin of victory worth 111 runs and 8 wickets.
The revenge narrative MI brought to Chennai tonight did not just fail. It did not even get started.
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- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
