Ten runs, and Mohit Sharma, stood between Chennai Super Kings and a fifth IPL title, late on Monday night at the Narendra Modi Stadium.
Ravindra Jadeja was at the crease, with just 2 more deliveries left in the game and the all-rounder dismissed the first for a six down the ground and then flicked the second for a boundary, to ignite celebrations across the stadium in Ahmedabad.
Chennai Super Kings had beaten Gujarat Titans by 5 wickets (via DLS method) in the rain-affected final that stretched across three days to clinch a record-equalling fifth Indian Premier League title. And to add to the celebrations across the country, MS Dhoni announced at the post-match presentation that he would try to play another season of the IPL for CSK.
Dhoni Elected to Put Gujarat Into Bat
Asked to bat first, openers Gill and Saha were a bit cautious in their approach in the first two overs against Deepak Chahar and Tushar Deshpande and were helped by some sloppy fielding as well. In the second over of the innings bowled by Deshpande, CSK skipper M.S. Dhoni placed Deepak Chahar at backward square and Gill hit the ball exactly there but the pacer couldn't catch it, which changed the momentum in Gujarat's favour.
From there on, both Chahar and Deshpande were taken on by Gill and Saha. Even spinner Maheesh Theeksana, who came to bowl the sixth over, was also treated severely as Gujarat Titans raced to 62/0 at the end of the Power-play.
It was Ravindra Jadeja who gave CSK their first breakthrough by removing the dangerous Gill, courtesy of a typically quick and incredible glovework from Dhoni. Gill dragged his back leg out and with the speed at which Dhoni operates, there was just no time for the batter to even consider getting back into the crease.
After Gill's wicket, things slowed down a bit for the Gujarat battersSaha and Sai Sudharsan. The CSK spinners, Jadeja and Theeksana, were getting some assistance from the pitch as the Titans reached 86/1 at the halfway mark.
With 10 overs to go and nine wickets in hand, Sai and Saha decided to up the ante, scoring 23 in the next two overs off Jadeja and Matheesha Pathirana, giving some impetus to Titans's innings. Saha, who came to open the innings and looked confident from the beginning, hit a Jadeja delivery between short third and backward point to score his fifty off 36 balls.
Things were going quite well for Gujarat and Dhoni brought Deepak Chahar into the attack. The pacer, who didn't have a great night in the field, got Saha to top-edge a pull and Dhoni took a simple catch, leaving Gujarat at 131-2 after 14 overs.
Sai Sudharsan was a touch slow through the lull in the middle overs but then decided to tee off. The left-handed batter had skipper Hardik Pandya at the other end but he took the mantle of scoring runs at a high pace. Some poor bowling from Theekshana and Pathirana also helped his cause as Sudharsan raced away to fifty off 32 balls.
After reaching his half-century, Sudharsan became even more aggressive and clobbered Deshpande for 20 runs in an over, with the help of one six and three fours. Gujarat were 173/2 in 17 overs and looked all set to get a big total on the board.
The next over bowled by Pathirana gave Gujarat just nine runs but Tushar Deshpande was taken to the cleaners by Pandya and Sai Sudharsan for 18 runs as nothing was going well for CSK bowlers against a formidable Titans batting line-up.
Pathirana came to bowl the last over and he was welcomed by sixes in the first two balls. However, the Sri Lankan pacer had the last laugh as he trapped Sudharsan in front of the wicket, ending the left-hander's batting carnage and denying him the chance to score his maiden IPL century.
In the next three balls, Pathirana gave just two runs and also removed Rashid Khan as Gujarat Titans finished with 214/4 on the board.
Chennai's Title-Winning Chase
Chasing the mammoth target, CSK scored four runs in the first three balls of the innings with openers Ruturaj Gaikwad and Devon Conway at the crease before rain intervened and stopped the play. When the match resumed at 12:10 am, after a long delay due to a wet outfield, the revised target for CSK was to chase 171 runs in 15 overs.
Both Conway and Gaikwad came with an attacking mindset and gave CSK a flying start, hitting some big shots and hammering Shami, Hardik Pandya and even Rashid Khan to take CSK to 52/0 in the revised four-over Power-play.
Gujarat Titans badly needed a wicket and left-armer spinner Noor Ahmed gave them two crucial breakthroughs in the seventh over - removing Gaikwad (26 off 16) and Conway (47 off 25) to put CSK on the back foot.
Needing 94 runs from 48 balls, CSK has Shivam Dube and Ajinkya Rahane at the crease with a massive task ahead of them. As has been the case with Rahane this season, he once again showed his class and played some exquisite strokes to give the much-needed impetus to CSK innings.
Though Dube was struggling to get his timing right, Rahane was in fine touch and took CSK to 112 for 2 in 10 overs. Just when it looked like CSK were cruising towards the target, veteran Mohit Sharma bowled with a great change of pace to pile up the pressure of dots and singles to eventually lure Rahane (27 off 13 balls)
The see-saw battle continued as Dube finished off Rashid's over with two successive sixes, leaving the four-time champions to chase 38 runs off the last 18 balls. Thereafter, Ambati Rayudu, who was playing his last IPL game, went on to hit 6, 4, 6 against Mohit to dwarf the target, but he got out of the next ball.
Dhoni walked in to bat with 22 needed off 14 and he had the chance to pull off the perfect ending but it wasn't to be as the CSK skipper hit the ball straight to cover for a first-ball duck. Shami then bowled a fine penultimate over to leave Mohit to defend 13 in six balls as Dube and Jadeja were not able to find boundaries.
Mohit Sharma bowled excellent yorkers and gave just three runs in the first four balls. But Jadeja had other plans and he hit a six and four in the last two balls to give CSK a thrilling five-wicket win and record fifth title.
(With inputs from IANS)
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