The last time Mumbai Indians played Chennai Super Kings, they were the strong favorites to win the Indian Premier League 2018. And why not? The Mumbai Indians are the richest team in the IPL with superstars such as Rohit Sharma, Pandya Brothers, Kieron Pollard and Jaspreet Bumrah.
They could have won that game against CSK too, if not for a brilliant once-in-an-IPL-season performance by DJ Bravo, who won the game for CSK singlehandedly. That loss was a close thing and Captain Rohit Sharma promised that the next game would be different.
6 games and 5 losses later, Rohit is still making the same promises – we will do better in the next game. But the fact is Mumbai have regressed. Their star players have done little of note. Hardik Pandya has bowled well, but his batting has been a major disappointment. His brother hasn’t done much either.
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Mumbai Coach Mahela Jayawardene has pinned the blame on the batsmen. He singled out Hardik in particular. Mahela, one of the best batsmen of his generation minced no words.
He said in a press conference, “Every year you can’t bat the same way, if people don’t evolve and improve, there is no progress. Young guys like Hardik will learn that and need to work harder, the talent alone will not get you.”
“Leading the game and thinking about the game, that’s the part they need to keep learning and specially with good international bowlers coming and doing various things you have to evolve otherwise you won’t be able to be consistent.”
“Today I am disappointed. Some of the matches we lost, I thought we played good cricket, they could have gone either way, it is T20 cricket. We just probably played the wicket thinking there is going to be demons out there and we just have to knock it around. We did not take any responsibility, so that part is quite disappointing,” Jayawardene said.
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Jayawardene’s disappointment has been felt by every fan of the Mumbai Indians team. Nobody can tell why this has happened and why the biggest team in the IPL is languishing at the bottom of the IPL table. But here we are!
CSK meanwhile, are sitting pretty. They are on top, 5 wins out of 6. The best part is that Captain MS Dhoni seems to have been rejuvenated, and has rediscovered his famous power hitting. He is once again the Dhoni as we know him to be, the most dangerous batsman in cricket who can destroy any bowling attack on his day.
Prediction: Could Mumbai Indians surprise everyone by playing up to their potential and actually winning a game? Or will they disappoint their fans again? Well, you never know with them. But we expect the professional CSK team to win again.
The Teams
Chennai Super Kings: 1 Shane Watson, 2 Ambati Rayudu, 3 Suresh Raina, 4 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 5 Sam Billings, 6 Ravindra Jadeja, 7 Dwayne Bravo, 8 Harbhajan Singh, 9 Deepak Chahar, 10 Shardul Thakur, 11 Imran Tahir
Mumbai Indians: 1 Suryakumar Yadav, 2 Evin Lewis, 3 Ishan Kishan (wk), 4 Rohit Sharma (capt), 5 Krunal Pandya, 6 Kieron Pollard, 7 Hardik Pandya, 8 Mitchell McClenaghan, 9 Mayank Markande, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, 11 Mustafizur Rahman
Watch Chennai Super Kings play Mumbai Indians tonight at 8 pm Live on Star Sports
