Chennai Super Kings defeat Mumbai Indians again in the Eliminator, their 4th win at Playoff Stage against Mumbai Indians in 5 such meetings. They have eliminated MI in 2010 also. With the convincing defeat the Fairytale journey of defending champions, Mumbai Indians came to an end. Although everyone wants to win, but MI should be more than happy at finishing 4th from a position where they scared DD as they appeared all set to finish at bottom two. In the competition between the teams full of big hitters, toss was going to play a crucial role, and Dhoni won the crucial toss, and his team completed the formality of winning the Eliminator by 7 wickets.
Player of the Eliminator: Raina
Raina completed 400+ runs for the 7th consecutive season of IPL and earned his umpteenth Player of the Match award of IPL. He has played all the matches for CSK so far, and is the highest overall run scorer of IPL. It was his day as before the match he was announced as the Captain of Indian Team visiting Bangladesh for ODI series, just after the final of the IPL. He remained unbeaten on 33-ball 54 runs with 2 6s and 4 4s to take his home through in the company of David Hussey.
MI Score 173/8
Sent to bat first, the MI openers Simmons (44-ball 67 runs with 4 6s and 5 4s) and Michael Hussey (33-ball 39 runs) gave them 76 run partnership in the first 10 overs. But as Hussey fell, there was nno stopping. First Anderson (10-balll 20 runs), then Simmons, followed by Rohit Sharma (16-ball 20 runs), Pollard (8-balll 4 runs), Tare (0), Rayudu (2) just threw their wickets in search of big shots. Still MI reached 173.
With 3/42 Mohit Sharma reached the top of bowlers with 22 wickets, surpassing Narine and Bhuvneswar Kumar. Nehra (2/34) and Jadeja (2/31) and Ashwin (1/26) were also successful.
CSK Batsmen Slaughter MI
CSK completed a hattrick of win over MI as they won all the three matches of this edition. Like MI openers, even CSK openers Smith (24 runs) and Plessis (20-ball 35 runs) gave their team a good start adding 60 runs in 6 overs. Harbhajan, in 7th over, sent both of them back, and soon Ojha sent Brendum McCullum back. In 10th over score still read 87/3. Three international and successful batsmen were back, still CSK had 4 more batsmen. Dhoni and Jadeja were not required, as Raina (54*) and David Hussey (29-ball 40* runs with 3 6s 2 4s) added 89 runs for 4th wicket and CSK won by 7 wickets with 8 balls remaining.
Harbhajan Singh (2/27) and Praveen Kumar (0/27) were economical, but Anderson (0/35), Ojha (1/34), Bumrab (0/40) hurt their chances. Pollard bowled an over for 10 overs.
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