In a repeat of last year’s final, Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings once again face each other in Eliminator today
Mumbai is the home of many a scripts — some good, many not so good — but perhaps the most intriguing one to come from the shores of the Arabian sea is Mumbai Indians’ entry into the Indian Premier league’s playoffs stage.
The stage could have only been set in the studios, far away from the Wankhede stadium where it was screenplayed on Sunday night when Mumbai made an astonishing 195 in 14.4 overs to eliminate Rajasthan Royals and earned the right to play in the Eliminator on Wednesday. Interestingly, Mumbai’s rivals are Chennai Super Kings, whom they beat in last year’s final.
A dream story where until the last ball, in fact even after that, of the last match of group stage, one did not know which of Rajasthan or Mumbai will make it to the final four.
Now, the astounding result takes the Mumbaikars a few blocks away from Wankhede to the Brabourne stadium at the Cricket Club of India (CCI) for the knockout game.
Unknown entityIJ
The MI-CSK tie would be the first one to be played at the stadium making the pitch virtually an unknown entity. CSK coach Stephen Fleming put some light on his team’s readiness for the Brabourne stadium.
“You tend to build your knowledge on a particular ground and determine what kind of team to select based on the conditions. To play at a ground that hasn’t hosted a lot of cricket and doesn’t have any recent history is a big challenge. Our biggest challenge in this game is that we are not 100 percent sure exactly what side to pick. We’ll go for players who are ready for the opportunity and are experienced in general,” Fleming said at the pre-match press conference on Tuesday.
But, as both teams had easy-going practice sessions on Tuesday it would have been clear that being a slowish pitch, it would attract the spinners. But then, the other end of the spectrum says the ground has smaller boundaries, especially the straight ones, tailor-made for even the mis-hits of CSK captain Mahendra Singh.
Man of the moment Corey Anderson, after his 44 ball 95 versus Rajasthan, meanwhile, said at the press meet adapting early to the pitch would be the key.
“It (the stadium) is a foreign venue for me, as it would be for a few other guys as well. Regardless of the boundary size, we still have to play well and adapt to the wicket and come up with a rough idea of what we can score in our innings early on,” Anderson explained.
Spin start
With explosive batsmen right at the top for both teams — Michael Hussey and lendl Simmons for Mumbai Indians and Dwayne Smith and Brendon McCullum — and a pitch that is slow and keeps low, it could well be that Dhoni opens with Ravichandran Ashwin or even Samuel Badree while his counterpart Rohit Sharma with Pragyan Ojha, and both CSK openers being right-handers, he may be tempted even more.
But the main worry for Mumbai is the death bowling options. They use Kieron Pollard, who went for 33 in three overs against Royals and does not have the ability to produce the all-important yorkers at will. The other bowler Jasprit Bumrah looks deceptive with an unorthodox run-up and bowls full length deliveries outside off-stump, to go with some yorkers. Harbhajan Singh is the central character here but short boundaries puts a question mark as to which way his four overs will go.
On the other hand, the men in yellow have played Ashish Nehra in their last game while have experimented with Badree. Mohit Sharma has been their best bowler with 19 wickets in 14 matches and then their is the ever-dependable Ravindra Jadeja. CSK look the better bowling side which may be the difference. Though, they also have the problem of a death bowler.
While it seems that Wednesday will be another one of those big run feasts, in Chennai there is a pragmatic side akin to winning the game in parts while Mumbai know their batting has to win them the match — just try and blow Chennai away.