Reliving the magical moments of the Indian Premier League Final, over the years

6. Chennai Super Kings vs Mumbai Indians – IPL 2013

You would now probably get a fair idea as to why CSK is regarded as one of the best teams in the IPL. Till 2013, they only failed to make it to the finals just once. Both CSK and MI ended atop of the table with 22 points each with CSK ending up first due to a better net run-rate. CSK was again the first team to enter the finals after they beat MI by 48 runs in the Qualifier-1. MI had to toil hard to get into the finals as they defeated RR by just 4 wickets.

In a low-scoring final, Rohit Sharma won the toss and opted to bat first. However, the Mumbai Indians didn’t have the kind of score on the board that they would have liked at the end of first innings. They only managed to get 148 runs on the board courtesy a 60-run knock off just 32 deliveries from Kieron Pollard. The CSK bowlers were on the top of their game and it was Dwayne Bravo who quickly ran through the MI lineup with four wickets.

It never seemed tough for CSK to chase this paltry total down. With 149 to get from 120 balls but their innings just panned out the way like MI’s innings. Many batsmen returned to the pavilion after scoring a duck. MS Dhoni was the lone warrior out there in the middle and he didn’t get any support from the other end like Pollard did. He remained not out 63 off 45 balls with the next highest score being 18. CSK might have got through had he got some support from the other end but that wasn’t to be the case as the Super Kings fell short by 23 runs.

Top performers of the season

Kieron Pollard was the ‘Man of the Match’ as he helped MI bailout of some severe trouble. Shane Watson was the ‘Most Valuable Player’ of the season in 2013.

Brief Scores:
MI: 148/9 in 20 overs ( Kieron Pollard 60*, Ambati Rayudu 37, Albie Morkel 2/12)
CSK: 125/9 in 20 overs ( MS Dhoni 63*, Murali Vijay 18, Mitchell Johnson 2/19)