IPL Talk

Mumbai Indians bow out of IPL

The loss in this game to the Chennai Super Kings has pushed the Mumbai Indians out of the Indian Premier League and they have just about made it to the T20 Champions League qualifying round.

The eliminator game between the Mumbai Indians and the Chennai Super Kings was an absolute thriller. The Mumbai Indians captain Harbhajan Singh won the toss and decide to bowl first.

At the start of the innings the decision of bowling first looked to have paid off but then after the fourth over it was the Chennai super Kings who resurrected the inning after losing two quick wickets.

Dhawal Kulkarni who was a revelation in the previous game continued his magic in this game by picking up 2 wickets in his 2nd and 3rd ball of this innings in over number 2. The wickets were those of Suresh Raina and Murali Vijay.

S. Badrinath and Michael Hussey were the ones to have saved they innings by reducing the speed of scoring and then saving the wickets from falling as they put on a partnership of 94 of 72 balls.

There was a late surge by Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Dwayne Bravo where both the batsmen scored at strike rates of over 200 where Dhoni scored 51 of 20 balls and Bravo scored 33 of 14 balls. They set a stiff target of 188 to chase down.

The late surge put pressure on to the Mumbai Indians who started off really well but then there was a patch of bowling that saw them lose 5 quick wickets. Sachin Tendulkar was the first to go, he was run out and then they just did not stop falling.

The game which should have been a thriller ended up being a slow game. There seemed to be no sense in the batting with none of the batsmen even trying to take the charge of playing anchor.

This was a do or die game and a situation tailor made for Kieron Pollard who still batted only at number 7. Probably lack of good captaincy in a crunch game led to the loss. He perished for only 16.

The top scorer for the Mumbai Indians was Dwayne Smith with 38 of 22 balls, other than him none of the other batsmen looked good.

The Chennai Super Kings will now play the Delhi Daredevils in the second qualifier, the winner of that game will play the Kolkata Knight Riders in the final of this seasons Indian Premier League.

Via IPL 2012 - IPL Cricket Live