Mumbai Indians beat Chennai Super Kings by six wickets to ease into the final of IPL 2019 at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Tuesday. Suryakumar Yadav played a brilliant innings scoring an unbeaten 71 off 54 balls with MI reaching the tricky 132-run target in 18.3 overs . But the story could well have been different had Murali Vijay held on to Suryakumar’s catch in the fifth over of the MI innings.

Suryakumar was batting on 11 when his mistimed cross-batted heave found Murali Vijay at mid-on off Deepak Chahar’s bowling. Vijay was a tad late in reacting but he did well to get both hands to the ball but to the dismay of the CSK fielders the ball somehow burst through his palms and raced away to the boundary.

The drop proved to be the turning point of the match as Suryakumar not only went to score his seventh IPL fifty but also stitched a crucial 80-run third wicket partnership with Ishan Kishan, who was dismissed for 28. The Kishan and Suryakumar partnership put MI on the driver’s seat despite losing their openers – Rohit Sharma and Quinton de Kock - cheaply.

That was not the only life Suryakumar got in the match. He was dropped again; this time by Shane Watson off Ravindra Jadeja’s bowling when he was on 53. This was obviously the difficult of the two chances but these needed to stick if CSK had to defend their low 131-run total.

Suryakumar, in the end, remained unbeaten on 71 off 54 balls to lead Mumbai to their fifth IPL final – the second most after CSK’s 7.

Earlier,Dhoni failed to launch a brutal assault on a sluggish pitch but did enough in company of Ambati Rayudu to propel Chennai Super Kings to 131 for 4, which was more than a fighting total in testing conditions. In the end, the difference was created by the three Mumbai Indians spinners Rahul Chahar (2/14 in 4 overs), Krunal Pandya (1/21 in 4 overs) and Jayant Yadav (1/25 in 3 overs), who gave away only 60 runs in the 11 overs between them taking four wickets.

First Published: May 08, 2019 01:01 IST