Phew!!!! Mumbai Indians get their revenge on Chennai Super Kings in this reverse fixture. They hammer their arch-rivals by 9 wickets and 26 balls to spare at the iconic Wankhede Stadium. Rohit Sharma roared back to form, scoring an unbeaten half-century. He bagged the player of the match award as well for his fireworks. CSK are now in serious danger of getting eliminated from the race for playoffs. They need to win all of their remaining matches and hope other results go their way.
Tomorrow we move to Eden Gardens for match number 39 of the 18th edition of IPL. Kolkata Knight Riders will host Gujarat Titans.
For now, that's all we have for you. This is Ajay Pal Singh signing off on behalf of my colleagues AkshayaKrishna Polya, Pritam Dey, Paras Yadav, Manish Bishnoi and Aman. Goodbye and Goodnight!!!!!
Most POTM Awards in MI vs CSK matches in IPL:
4 - Kieron Pollard
4 - Rohit Sharma
3 - Suresh Raina
Most Player of the Match Awards in IPL
25 - AB de Villiers
22 - Chris Gayle
20 - Rohit Sharma*
19 - Virat Kohli
18 - MS Dhoni
18 - David Warner
Rohit Sharma (POTM): "They are the fans who love cricket. This is what is special about Wankhede, people here support good cricket.
Yeah, look after being here for such a long time. It is very easy to start doubting yourself, start getting worried and start doing different things. It was important for me to keep practicing and keep working hard. When you back yourself, things do happen. I know it has been a while but if you start to doubt yourself then you are only going to put pressure on yourself. Experience of being here for such a long time helps.
Look, it is important to balance out your innings. I wanted to hit the ball but it was important for me to hold my shape. Just extend my arms. Then if the ball is in my arc, then I will go after it. It may not help consistently but it is important to have clear mindset which is what I am trying to do.
[On him being an impact sub] I mean look, it is something we talked about. 2-3 overs doesn't really make any difference. You haven't fielded for 17 overs and then you stand in a position where you don't expect the ball to come. You don't want to be in that situation. I don't mind going for 4-5 overs or team wants me to stay I am happy with that.
[On hitting the ball at the soon-to-be inaugurated Rohit Sharma Stand] I don't know about that. Looks pretty far that stand. What is satisfying for me is to bat through the innings. We know how IPL is, winning games back-to-back is important and we stand in a good position.
[On his stand] Yeah, it is a huge honour. I mentioned about it as a young kid. Used to watch the game, we were not allowed to enter the stadium. It is an emotional moment, whenever that happens, I am not sure how I am going to react."
Player of the Match: Rohit Sharma
Hardik Pandya (MI Captain): "The way I think we are playing the sport. The way we bowled in this wicket as we knew it's going to be a high scoring game. Also the way we batted. When Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav bat like this, it's a happy scene from outside.
There was always confidence. You don't need to worry about Rohit Sharma. When he is going to come good, he will come good like this. And we are very aware of it. Once he comes, the opposition will be out of the game. Excellent from Surya as well. Brilliant partnership.
Absolutely, people are stepping up. We are playing smart cricket as everyone are doing the basics right. We don't want to do magical stuffs and that's working out for us.
(On the spinners) Maybe I could've given an over or two more but at that point of time, I knew that they are running behind the game. The fast bowlers went for a couple of runs but we wanted something around 175-180 to chase.
I mean it's about game by game. The kind of losses we had in the previous games, we had to learn from them. We just had to figure it out and now everything is stitching well for us."
Most Dot Balls of the Match: Deepak Chahar (11 dot balls)
Most Fours of the Match: Suryakumar Yadav (6 Fours)
Super Sixes of the Match: Rohit Sharma (6 maximums)