Mumbai Indians thrash CSK to enter IPL final

Mumbai: Mumbai Indians put up a superb all-round performance crushing Chennai Super Kings by 25 runs to enter the final of the eighth edition of Indian Premier League in Mumbai on Tuesday. 

En route their third entry to the summit round after 2010 and 2013, Mumbai Indians scored 187 for six largely due to the brilliant cameo from Kieron Pollard who smashed a 17-ball-41 on the platform laid by Lendl Simmons’ 65 off 51 balls. 

In reply, CSK’s much vaunted line-up could muster only 162 in 19 overs as none of the top-order batsmen went onto play a match-winning knock. 

Such was the domination by the home team that CSK never looked a part during better part of the match and ended second best in the process. But the five-time finalists and two-time champions will get another crack during the second Qualifier to be played in Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s hometown Ranchi. 

The telling blow was dealt by Harbhajan Singh (2/26 in 4 overs), who removed the dangerous Suresh Raina (25) and skipper MS Dhoni (0) off successive deliveries to swing the match decisively in MI’s favour. Lasith Malinga (3/23) and R Vinay Kumar (2/26) did play their part as MI have now won nine out of 11 matches. 

Faf du Plessis (45) played well but just like Raina was deceived by slow nature of the pitch going for a big hit. 

OPener Dwayne Smith (0) received a rough decision from umpire Richard Illingworth off Lasith Malinga’s bowling and Mike Hussey (16) showed that he is still rusty having not played for better part last month and a half. 

Dwayne Bravo (20) got a reprieve when Harbhajan dropped him off his own bowling to miss out on a third victim. 

However the man from Jallandhar made a lot of difference during his four overs as he was slower through the air and tossing the ball up. One such tossed up delivery saw Raina failing to check his shot and offer a simple return catch. 

Dhoni tried an ambitious sweep shot off the first delivery that was flighted on the off-middle channel and was caught plumb in-front. Bravo averted the hat-trick but could have been gone as he also was fooled by flight but Harbhajan messed it up big time. 

It didn’t cost them much as a smart piece of work from Parthiv-Pollard duo saw Bravo heading back to pavilion. Once Bravo was back in the dug-out, CSK’s chances were practically over.