Chennai: In a dramatic collapse, Mumbai Indians handed out a 24-run victory to the Chennai Super Kings at the M Chidambaram Stadium on Tuesday. Mumbai restricted Chennai to 164-4, and were in control during the powerplay but the Super Kings bounced back by taking six wickets for 28 runs after Sachin Tendulkar got retired hurt due to dehydration.
Tendulkar returned to the middle later but MS Dhoni's men were in no mood to throw away the game. In the end, the Mumbai Indians, who needed 34 runs off the last over, could manage only 141-9. Continue reading below
Mumbai's only second defeat in the IPL has kept the Chennai Super Kings alive in the tournament with 10 points from as many games.
The visitors' chase got off to a solid start as Tendulkar and Shikhar Dhawan (16) accumulated 46 runs in six overs. However, things changed once Dhawan played on to his stumps. Tendulkar, who was struggling with his fitness, retired when he was on 38 off 28 balls. And then began a downward spiral of the Mumbai batting.
Mumbai lost four wickets for just seven runs in a space of two overs as Saurabh Tiwary (14 ), Kieron Pollard (five), Rajagopal Sathish (four) and Ryan McLaren (one) were dismissed in quick succession.
Tendulkar came back but could manage to add run-a-ball seven before he holed out to Murali Vijay off Thilan Thushara. Harbhajan Singh gave a semblance of hope when he smashed Doug Bollinger for two consecutive sixes but Mumbai had let the game slip too far away with the asking rate too big to handle for the late order batsmen.
Only five sixes were hit in the game with Harbhajan hitting three and Chennai's Matthew and Suresh Raina hitting one each.
Earlier, Pollard dented the Super Kings by dismissing Dhoni (31) and Hayden (35) off consecutive balls in the 14th over just when the home side were looking to accelerate. Hayden struggled in his innings with the mongoose failing to get going albeit two straight hits off Dwayne Bravo.
Mumbai kept a tight lid on the scoring rate right from the onset as Chennai's in-form players could not manage too many big hits.
Vijay (14), who smashed a blistering hundred in Chennai's previous game on the same ground against the Rajasthan Royals, was the first wicket to fall. Raina (23) hit a huge six before the same shot led to his downfall.
In the end, S Badrinath, who made an unbeaten 30 off just 22 balls along with Mike Hussey (14 not out) took them to 164, which proved enough in the end.
