After the amazing spinners, Chennai gave a crushing defeat to Mumbai due to Rahane’s blast.

After the amazing bowling of left-arm spinners Ravindra Jadeja (three wickets for 20 runs) and Mitchell Santner (two wickets for 28 runs), Chennai Super Kings (CSK) won the Indian Premier League T20 tournament on the basis of Ajinkya Rahane’s fast batting. Recorded a seven-wicket win over their arch-rivals Mumbai Indians with 11 balls to spare. Chennai Super Kings made the 1000th match of IPL memorable by scoring 159 for three in 18.1 overs after restricting Mumbai Indians to 157 for eight.

This is Chennai’s second win in three matches while it is Mumbai’s second defeat in two matches. Rahane, playing his first match for Chennai, hit seven fours and three sixes in a 27-ball aggressive innings. He completed the fastest half-century of the season in 19 balls and laid the foundation for the team’s victory by sharing an 82-run partnership with Ruturaj Gaikwad for the second wicket. Gaikwad remained unbeaten on 40 off 36 balls while Shivam Dube scored 28 off 26 balls and veteran Ambati Rayudu scored an unbeaten 20 off 16 balls.

Chennai were jolted by injury to key pacer Deepak Chahar in the opening over of the match but man of the match Jadeja and Santner shared five wickets for just 48 runs in their quota of eight overs to put Mumbai on the back foot. Jadeja spent 20 runs in four overs and Santner spent just 28 runs in the same over. Tushar Deshpande (31 runs in three overs) took two and IPL debutant Sisanda Magala (37 runs in four overs) took one wicket. Ishan Kishan top-scored for Mumbai with 32 off 21 balls while Tim David scored 31 off 22 balls.

Chasing the target, Jason Behrendorff (1/24) got Mumbai off to a flying start by bowling Devon Conway scoreless in the first over. Rahane showed his intentions by hitting a six against this bowler in the third over. After hitting a six against Arshad Khan in the fourth over, he scored 23 runs in four consecutive fours. Rahane then hit a six against Cameron Green and two consecutive fours against Piyush Chawla (1/33) in the sixth over to complete his first fifty in the IPL since 2020.

In Powerplay, Chennai scored 68 runs for one wicket. Chawla ended Rahane’s brilliant innings by getting caught by Suryakumar in the eighth over. After Rahane’s dismissal, the Chennai batsmen insisted on running and scoring runs without taking risks. Ruturaj hit the first four of his innings against Chawla in the fourth ball of the 10th over, while Shivam hit his first six against Hrithik Shokin in the 14th over. However, he was bowled by ‘Impact Player’ Kumar Kartikeya (1/24) in the next over.

He shared a 43-run partnership with Ruturaj. Chennai’s ‘Impact Player’ Ambati Rayudu then supported Ruturaj well and hit the first ball of the 19th over to give the team their 15th win in 35 matches against Mumbai. Earlier, captain Rohit Sharma and Kishan gave Mumbai Indians an aggressive start by sharing a 38-run partnership in the first four overs. Rohit (21 off 13 balls) hit a total of three fours against Deepak and Deshpande in the first two overs while Kishan welcomed Magala with three fours in the third over.

Rohit hit the first six of the innings against Deshpande in the fourth over but the bowler bowled him on the last ball of the over to give the team the first success. Kishan’s style did not change even after this wicket. He hit two more fours against Magala in the sixth over, leaving Mumbai at 61 for one after the power play. Mahendra Singh Dhoni handed the ball to Jadeja in the seventh over and the experienced bowler got Kishan caught by Pretorius. In the next over, Dhoni continued Suryakumar Yadav’s poor form by taking a brilliant catch off the bowling of Mitchell Santner.

The on-field umpire called it wide but Dhoni took DRS and replays showed the ball hitting Surya’s gloves. After this, Jadeja caught an excellent catch of Green (12 runs in 11 balls) on his ball, while Santner trapped Arshad. In this way, Mumbai lost four wickets within 12 runs. Tilak Verma, who scored a half-century for Mumbai in the last match, hit a six against Jadeja in the 13th over to complete his team’s hundred, but became the third victim of Jadeja’s third ball when he was lbw in the next ball.

Tristan Stubbs (five runs in 10 balls) became Magala’s first victim in the IPL in the 16th over. David tried to come back to Mumbai by hitting two sixes and a four against Deshpande in the next over but Rahane was caught in the process of playing another big shot. In the last over, Hrithik (18 not out in 12 balls) hit three fours against Pretorius to bring Mumbai’s score to a respectable score.