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IPL 2020: On Thursday evening at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium, the all-round power of MI rose to the fore as they outclassed DC, storming into their second straight IPL final.
Delhi will now have to wait for Sunday after the 57-run out, where they will meet the winner of the eliminator on Friday to make their maiden final.
Delhi’s bowling attack was still smashed for 200 runs without any contribution from the bat from two of their top players, Rohit Sharma and Kieron Pollard.
Still, even that batting display was overshadowed by how, within the first eight balls of the chase, Trent Boult and Jasprit Bumrah blew away the top-order Capitals. With DC’s zero to three score, the contest was as good as it was over.
Because of the dew factor in the second half of the match, winning the toss is considered a big advantage, but MI’s batsmen neutralized it with a formidable total on the board. The only player to challenge MI with an outstanding performance of three wickets for 29 runs was Delhi’s R Ashwin.
The early impetus was given to MI by Quinton De Kock (40 off 25 balls) and Suryakumar Yadav (51 off 38 balls). By capitalising on the powerplay overs to take the score to 63 for one, their highest six-over score in this IPL, they ensured that Captain Sharma’s early loss did not hurt them.
Later on, during the middle overs, Ishan Kishan soaked up the pressure to crack Capital’s bowling plans. It was his Hardik Pandya partnership that knocked the wind out of the sails of the Capitals. After stuttering between overs 11 and 14, MI added 92 runs in the last six overs, when they got just 15 runs from four overs.
This was largely due to a late assault by Hardik and the counter-attack by Kishan. Hardik waded into Daniel Sams, Rabada and Nortje in the last three overs alone to finish off the innings with 17, 18 and 20-run overs. In 23 balls, the two added 60 runs.
Two hundred was always going to be a challenging issue. But once both Boult and Bumrah bowled a double-wicket maiden each, Boult in the first over and Bumrah during the last rites, tough became much tougher.
