Sixth edition of the Indian Premier League ended with a bang. The cricket tournament that began on April 3rd at Kolkata saw the participation of 9 teams having 16 matches for each of them to make into Qualifiers. In total there were 72 matches to decide the top 4 teams to play in qualifiers. After 72 league matches CSK, MI, RR and SRH made their way into the qualifiers, while CSK topped the point table followed by the MI. MI and CSK made their way into the finals from the qualifiers while RR and SRH ended their journey in qualifiers. CSK lead by the charismatic Indian cricket team captain MS Dhoni under whose captaincy CSK has already won this tournaments for two time, while MI was lead by one of the greatest captain in the Cricket history Ricky Ponting for first 6 matches but due to lack of form he dropped himself and also resigned from the captainship and Rohit Sharma was appointed as captain for the remaining matches. He did impressive job and under his captaincy MI managed to get into final for 2nd time. Now they were just one game away from the IPL championship.
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| Mumbai Indians team with IPL 2013 trophy |
Controversy
Controversies do followed the IPL from last season like bad umpiring and Spot fixing. Most shocking was to see the involvement of the international cricketers from Indian like S Sreesanth along with some domestic players A Chandelia and A Chawan from the IPL team Rajasthan Royals. Mumbai crime branch do revealed the news of involvements of the artists from the Bollywood and as well as team officials like the CSK owner G Meiyappan. These things will definitely depreciate the market value of the brand IPL and it does hurt to sentiments of cricket followers. But that depend on BCCI, how they come out of it and try to make the tournament as clean and fair as much possible But, the IPL final saw a full house Eden gardens, and that was really good for the tournaments point of view. As the local team KKR failed to qualify for the finals, still the stadium was jam packed. Being a huge cricket follower it was really great to see the presence of that much crowd in the final.
MI Batting
The toss was won by MI skipper Rohit Sharma and he elected to bat first. As it is very famous in the cricket in pressure game like finals always go for bat first. Sachin was absent in the final like past four games due to his tendon injury. MI started their inning with openers D Smith and A Tare. The inning started in very dramatic fashion for MI as they lost inform batsman D Smith for 4 in very first over & other opener A Tare on duck at team score of 8. In 2nd over itself the skipper was on the field to make recovery and provide some stability. But at the team score of 16, he too got out of the bowling of A Morkel contributing just 2 runs to the team. It was looking like as if it’s going to be a low scoring affair. But next in Ambati Raidu and D Karthik put on some resistance and took the score of MI from 16/3 to 52/3 at the same score D Kartick got out and big hitter west Indian Kieron Pollard made his way to the ground. Raidu and Pollard took the score forward, Pollard played with aggression while Raidy played sensibly for his 37 from 36 deliveries before getting out at the score of 100. In slog overs Pollard started striking big and he was doing very well but from other side he was losing on his partners and he finished the MI inning 2 back to back sixes of fellow countrymen D Bravo and took the score of MI to 148/9 at the end of allotted 20 over’s. K Pollard top scored for the MI scoring 60 runs from just 32 deliveries. CSK bowled and fielded brilliantly and all the wickets were took by the fast bowlers. Bravo took 4 wickets while 2 wickets went to Morkel while 1wicket each for Morris and M Sharma. Now it was upto the CSK batsmen the chase the score of 149 within the allotted 20 overs and get their hand on the IPL trophy for 3rd time.
CSK Chase
In form batsman and orange cap holder Mike Hussey and Murli Vijay made their way to the pitch to chase the target of 149 while Rohit Sharma choose to start with Lasith Malinga. The way SCK bowlers bowled in the first inning it looked like there was something for the fast bowlers. Chasing 149, Hussey got his stumps uprooted on a fast Yorker from the Malinga and on the very next bowl he removed in form batsman Suresh Raina at widish fine leg on a fast short pitch delivery. So, CSK lost two in form batsmen at the score of 2 and it was clear that its not going to be that easy for CSK to chase the target. At the score of 3 they lost another batsman Badrinath, now they were 3/3. CSK batsmen created a complete chaotic situation and that resulted in the collapse and they were reeling on the score of 39/6. So, it looked like as if it’s going to be a one sided affair but CSK skipper decided to fight and he made some small partnerships with lower order batsmens but couldn’t succeed to chase the target as he was losing his partners on regular basis and CSK could manage 125/9 at the end of allotted 20 overs. He got no support that resulted 23 run loss for the CSK and they lost the final for 2nd time in a row. It was a kind of worst chase in the final of all editions of IPL from the most balanced and consistent team in IPL. MS Dhoni top scored for the CSK scoring 63 from 45 deliveries hitting 3 boundaries and 5 big sixes but that wasn’t enough for the cause. Mumbai like CSK bowled and fielded brilliantly, Malinga, Jhonson and Bhajji picked up two wickets each while Pollard, Dhawan and Ojha managed to grab 1 wicket each. For Mumbai it was brilliant team work, they bowled brilliantly, fielded brilliantly and captaincy was marvelous from the young Rohit Sharma.
AWARD CEREMONY:-
As it was the final match of the IPL edition 6 so, lots of award were distributed. All of them are listed below with the team's name in the bracket.
Catch of the Season :- Gurkeerat Singh Mann (Punjab Kings XI)
Youngster of the Season :- Sanju Samson (Rajsthan Royals)
Orange Cap (for most runs) :- Michael Hussey(Chennai Super Kings)
Purple Cap (For most wickets) :- Dwayne Bravo(Chennai Super Kings)
Most Valuable Player :- Shane Watson(Rajsthan Royals)
Fair play Team Award :- Chennai Super Kings
Winner’s Trophy :- Mumbai Indians
One more important news for the all cricket followers that Sachin took retirement from the IPL, so we are surely going to miss the “God of Cricket“ in the IPL. That may be an indication that the South African tour of the team India may be the last international match for the Master Blaster and he may took the retirement from the Test like ODIs.
we miss you sachinipl 7 in this season
ReplyDelete@jhunjhunlive, No doubt Sachin is great cricketer and we are habituated to see him playing. So, we are going to miss him very dearly as the cricket fan.
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