Video of Rayudu’s 72 in 27 balls : 7 Sixes : IPL 2021

Mumbai Indians vs Chennai Super Kings, 01 May 2021, 7:30 PM IST

Match Result: Mumbai Indians won by 4 wickets

Player of the Match : Kieron Pollard

Match Report: Mumbai’s ‘tactical’ changes didn’t work but a Pollard masterclass had bailed them out of trouble as the defending champions ended CSK’s winning run. Chennai, meanwhile, had some issues to address, especially their bowling at death. The El Clasico of IPL treated us fans with an absolute brilliance of a contest. 

Ambati Rayudu – 72 off 27 balls! What a stunning innings it was. Mumbai Indians had taken 3 wickets in the space of 7 balls but Rayudu came out with an I-don’t-care-about-it attitude. Took Bumrah apart too with his range of hits and got CSK to an above par total score-wise. At one stage it looked like CSK may struggle to get to 185, but Rayudu stole the show and Bumrah went for 56 runs, his costliest IPL figures. MI chose to bowl and Boult got them off to a good start by getting Ruturaj in the first over.

Bowled a couple of good balls to Moeen first up, but Faf and Moeen then took on the bowlers in style to ensure a good powerplay. Moeen’s timing was so good to watch and he wasn’t afraid to hit the ball in the air. He added 108 runs with Faf before Bumrah got him. Pollard did well by removing Faf and Raina off successive balls, but MI’s “tactical” changes to bring in Neesham and Kulkarni didn’t work as both went over 12 runs per over. Rayudu’s stellar hitting meant Jadeja could get away with his struggle – a run-a-ball 22.

Moeen Ali – “We played well, assessed the conditions early and played to our strengths. With the batsmen (and the depth) we have, it’s important to keep going, it was important to keep partnerships building.

He (Rayudu) played an amazing knock, that situation was a bit tricky for us, but then he played superbly, and has been an important member of the team. They (MI) have some special players, we need to be humble and bowl as a unit.”

MS Dhoni –  “It was a brilliant wicket. The difference was the execution. Not being too tough on bowlers, we dropped catches at crucial intervals. The bowlers would execute better and learn from this. If you look how it went. we were very off target when it came to execution. It is important to do that.

The wicket was easy to hit. In a tournament like this, you will win and lose a few close games. When you are under the pump, you learn a lot. Irrespective where we are in the points table, we take one game at a time. We hardly ever focus where we are standing on the table. That has been our good point along the way.”

Rohit Sharma: Probably one of the best T20 games that I have ever been part of. I have never seen a chase like that before. One of best innings from Polly. Brilliant to see that from outside. Very happy with the effort the boys put in.

Good pitch, smaller ground, we wanted to stay positive once we finished those 20 overs. We got off to a decent start and then we saw what happened. We had a brief chat during the interval in which we said it’s a good pitch, back yourselves. 

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