MI and DC take on each other at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium with a final place at stake. The battle promises to be intense as MI is the strongest team in the league and DC seems to have found their ideal batting formation in the last game. Removing Shimron Hetmeyer and bringing Rahane into the mix made DC much more solid in terms of hitting. It also means they can play Daniel Sams to trouble the hitters with some spin on the first passes.
DC won the pitch and chose to play on the dream batting field in Dubai. MI welcomed all their bowling superstars after the defeat in their last match against SRH. Very true, Rohit Sharma has pointed out that this is a new match and they don’t want any hangover from their last match.
Shreyas Iyer’s army began the battle in a grand manner. There are many reasons why big players serve in big games. Instead of withering under pressure, they take advantage of opportunities and elevate their game at key moments to win the battle. Ashwin, as a white ball pitcher has been neglected time and again after the ICC Champions Trophy 2017. I said in the previous game, it was refreshing to see Ashwin come back to do those things. what he does best. Personally, I feel that he’s tried too many things over the past few years, including bowling, but this year he came out with the right mindset.
He took Rohit Sharma in 2rank end of the game, opening the game entirely for Delhi Capitals. QDK and Surya took control of the situation from here. The duo’s incredible hit caused MI to regain momentum from DC, after Rohit was initially fired. Rabada and Nortje were brought to the cleaners, with absolutely no offers and Mumbai comfortably took a 64-1 lead in the power game.
The biggest change that has happened to Surya this year has been its ability to milk singles between big hits. He has always been someone who is very capable of breaking boundaries with his feet with his sweeps, sweeps and pulls, but his inability to separate good serves puts undue pressure on him. that. This year, he’ll hit that big six and pick singles out of the remaining deliveries to turn it into an 11-12 run. Another big improvement in his swing is that he stands much more upright when he hits shots. Before that, he used to crouch when hitting the ball with his feet, which limited his side game quite a bit. His upright stance allows him to open offside situations and make good saves and crosses.
QDK and Surya brought MI to 78 in 7 rounds, before both quickly fell. Again, Ashwin struck with a long shot to knock out the South African, who caused a minor collapse in the MI middleweight. Ashwin showed his bravery in a high-pressure match, when MI lost 3 strokes in 25 runs to drop to 101-4. Credit to Ashwin for bringing DC back into the game, as he accounted for 2 of those 3 goals – a decline that included the dismissal of the dreaded Kieron Pollard. Ashwin finished 3 to 29 in his 4 rounds, giving DC the advantage in the mid rounds.
MI 4 times IPL champion is not because they have names like Rohit, Pollard or Bumrah in the squad. That’s because, even after you take out those big names, you still have a team that can beat most of the league’s other franchises. The team’s biggest USP is that they never really look to consolidate, they look to counter-attack even from weak situations. That is exactly what Ishan Kishan and Hardik Pandya did today.
With a score of 140-5, Pandya-Kishan was the last recognized batting pair for MI. However, instead of worrying about it, they consolidated their strength and confronted Rabada and Nortje. Ishan Kishan continued his dream form to race for another half-century and India’s very own version of Andre Russell, Hardik Pandya scored 37 lightning points in 14 serves. The most notable part of their partnership was that they targeted the V between the deep cover and deep midsection. Neither Ishan nor Hardik attempted to get past the forefoot or the third, and together they put together an epic match-changing partnership of 60 out of 29 balls to bring MI to the 200-run mark.
The first game of the Delhi chase brings back memories of the 2013 IPL final. Mike Hussey was the orange hat holder that season with 733 runs. Suresh Raina also had a stellar season with 548 runs in the league. MI was the weaker team going into the finals, facing a clinical CSK. MI sets a lower-par target of 146 for CSK and halfway through it looks like CSK will advance to round 3rank IPL header. However, Malinga started off with a big bang, knocking out both Hussey and Raina in the first game. The shock was so significant that CSK couldn’t bounce back during the round and went on to lose the final after 18 runs, even though MS Dhoni fought it off with a score of 63.
Tonight, Boult is like Malinga 2.0. Boult rushed in and created the advantage against Prithvi Shaw with a left-hand corner serve. A few balls later, his serve came from the same spot to trap the in-form Rahane in front of his tree. Even before DC could start the chase, the game was over in a flash. A teenager hitting doubles in the first of more than 200 plus chases isn’t just a dream start for the fighting side.
If there was any doubt that the game wasn’t over, Bumrah smashed Shikhar Dhawan’s stump with a toe cut to eliminate the 3rd hitter for DC in the next game. Just to give information to my readers, MI has yet to concede a single goal and they have eliminated DC’s top 3.
Since then, the outcome of the match has been a mere formality. Stones played a good hand of 65, but at no point in the chase, Delhi looked like she was getting into the game at all. Iyer and Pant continued their terrible form and Delhi suffered an embarrassing defeat in 57 runs. The margin could have been much higher had Stoinis and Axar Patel not saved their team from the chaos.
MI has been the best team in the tournament so far and they deservedly took first place in the finals. Will they face a DC lack of confidence? Or will it be one of SRH and RCB? We’ll have to wait to find that out.
