IPL 2013 Playoff 1: CSK Reaches 5th Final, Again Humiliates MI in Playoff

As predicted, Chennai Super Kings won the Playoff 1 at Kotla easily by 48 runs margin. In the process despite trailing Mumbai Indians on Head-to-Head record in IPL, CSK registered third consecutive Playoff win over MI in three different editions. MI were no match for CSK except the innings of Dwayn Smith as CSK reached 4th consecutive IPL final. MI on the other hand still have a chance to meet CSK again in the final.

IPL 2013 Schedule and Results

CSKs Innings
Electing to bat first on a batsmen-friendly pitch CSK top-order trio justified their Captains decision. With Pollard taking the only wicket to fall of Murali Vijay after a 52-run first wicket stand, there was no respite for MI bowlers. Hussey (86 runs) and Raina (82 runs) added unbeaten 140 runs for 2nd wicket. They clobbered every bowler as Malinga (0/45) and Johnson (0/40) proved the most expensive. Harbhajan with 0/26 was the only bowler who could avoid the punishment in his first three overs.
In the process Hussey grabbed the Orange Cap reaching 732 runs.

MIs Chase of 192 runs
MIs chase was all about Dwayn Smith who scored 21-ball half-cenutry and overall 67 runs. Remaining 10 batsmen just tried to bat till 20 overs, in which they failed by 8 balls. Smith has taken MI to top but introduction of Jadeja got him back to dug out. Jadeja also plucked Karthik and Pollard. Bravo grabbed 3 late wickets while Mohit Sharma after getting hit in first three overs bowled the 19th over and had 2 wickets in 4 balls to wind up the MIs chase. Morris and Morkel had 1 wicket each while Ashwin went wicketless in 2 overs.
Dwayn Bravo with 28 wickets overall grabbed the Purple Cap.

Records Within CSKs reach
With their extension of record entries (5th overall) in IPL final, CSK players are chasing many individual records.
Raina has already become the only player to have scored 400 or more runs in every edition of IPL.
14 catches in the season have already helped Dwayn Bravo set a new record breaking 13 catch records of a season set by AB de Villiers (2009 for DD) and Rohit Sharma (2012 for MI).
13th 50+ partnership (includes 2 century partnerships) by Hussey and Murali Vijay is a new record for maximum such partnerships between two players for any wickets.

    Hussey needs 2 runs to break IPLs record 733 runs scored by Gayle in 2012.
    Dwayn Bravo needs 1 more wicket to break IPLs record of maximum 28 wickets in IPL set by Malinga.
    Hussey needs one more MOM to equal Gayle’s record 6 MOMs in one season.
    CSK needs one win to become the only team to win the IPL thrice.

For all that CSK has just one more game. Probably with the win all the players would be ready to donate their individual records. That is the kind of team spirit they are following, as they have already won the Fair Play award too for current edition.

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