Chennai Super Kings 158 for 6 (Ravindra 65*, Gaikwad 53, Puthur 3-32) beat Mumbai Indians 155 for 9 (Tilak 31, Noor 4-18, Khaleel, 3-29) by four wickets
Chennai Super King's bowling acquisitions during the off-season paid immediate dividends as their four new bowlers took nine wickets between them to restrict Mumbai Indians to 155 for 9, a total that they chased down with ease but not without a hiccup against debutant left-arm wristspinner Vignesh Puthur, who is yet to represent his state side in senior cricket.
However, it was the other left-arm wristspinner, younger than Puthur but a veteran by experience, who made the telling impact. Noor Ahmad registered his best IPL figures and the best figures for a CSK spinner against MI, 4 for 18, to capitalise on the inroads made by Khaleel Ahmed, whose CSK debut was not too shabby either: wickets of the openers and analysis of 4-0-29-3.
CSK captain Ruturaj Gaikwad made the chase look like a walk in the park with 53 off 26, bringing the requirement down to a run a ball in the ninth over, but this is when they started losing wickets to Puthur, struggling to impart power into his slow wristspin. Three of them holed out in the deep, but Rachin Ravindra anchored the chase with 65 not out off 45 to see them home.
Khaleel rocks MI early
Khaleel is a dichotomous IPL bowler. He is worse than the average fast bowler during afternoon games, and better than the average fast bowler in night games. The only explanation for it is that there is a small window for movement with the new ball under lights, and he is a different beast when the ball moves. It showed in how he denied the openers a big hit with the little bit of movement that was available. The eventual dismissals looked soft - Rohit Sharma caught at forward square leg and Ryan Rickleton bowled off an inside edge - but they were the results of the pressure created by Khaleel himself.
To make it better for CSK, their returning homeboy R Ashwin took a wicket in his first over. There is not much mystery to the Ashwin who has returned to CSK after more than a decade, but his length was immaculate, making it a risk every time the batters wanted to attack him. He ended up with figures of 4-0-31-1, the wicket being that of Will Jacks inside the powerplay.
Noor undoes Tilak and Suryakumar
Down at 36 for 3 in 4.4 overs, MI needed something special from their two best batters, stand-in captain Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma. The latter hit right back by taking two fours off Ashwin and then hitting two sixes off Ravindra Jadeja, against whom Suryakumar doesn't enjoy a good match-up.
Noor then applied the handbrake with some elan. He was so difficult to pick that even MS Dhoni was beaten by a mile when he turned one past Varma's outside edge. That seed of doubt cast, he went back to what he does more often, turn the ball the other way at high speed. Suryakumar was beaten on the outside edge and stumped in a flash by Dhoni.
Debutant Robin Minz couldn't get going and tried a desperate shot only to be caught at long-off. Tilak was beaten both in the air and off the pitch: caught on the crease, he had no time to adjust to the ball that turned back in and trapped him lbw. Noor came back at the death to bowl Naman Dhir around his legs.
Nathan Ellis took care of one of the former CSK players, Mitchell Santner, but the other, Deepak Chahar gave MI something to bowl at with a cameo of 28 off 15.
Hayden, Chawla and Varun on Dhoni's wicketkeeping
Gaikwad, No. 3, runs away with the chase
CSK made a surprise move of promoting Rahul Tripathi ahead of Gaikwad, but it didn't last long as Chahar carried on from where he had left off with the bat, taking a wicket in his first over with a well-directed short ball.
Gaikwad, though, batted like a dream, taking down Trent Boult and both former colleagues, Chahar and Santner. S Raju, who is supposed to be a good death bowler, made an indifferent start with the new ball, and CSK raced away to 62 for 1 in the powerplay. The field spread, but Gaikwad kept going, hitting Jacks for a beautiful inside-out six against the turn, suggesting an easy pitch to bat on.
Puthur halts CSK
With just 82 needed off the last 13 overs, CSK would have wanted to register a big net-run-rate bonus, which is perhaps why they kept trying to hit Puthur's slow left-arm wristspin for sixes. More than anything it was his slow pace and the slight slowness of the pitch that kept resulting in catches on the fence. Still, Gaikwad, Shivam Dube and Deepak Hooda is not a bad debut haul at all.
By now, it was almost like the home crowd was willing MI to take wickets so that they could get a glimpse of Dhoni with the bat. When Jacks bowled Sam Curran for 4 off 9, it drew a big cheer but the sight of Jadeja quelled the excitement.
Ravindra sees CSK home
The steepest the task got was 31 off the last four overs, but this is when MI gave CSK some pace to work with, and Jadeja immediately hit Boult for a four. Ravindra was the only batter to hit boundaries off Puthur: three sixes, all thanks to momentum generated by his use of feet to charge at the bowler. A run-out in the 19th over gave the Chepauk crowd what they wanted, they even got a six to seal the game, but off the bat of Ravindra as Dhoni stayed unbeaten on 0 off two.
