The El Classico of the Indian Premier League lived up to its expectations on Saturday as the game between Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians went down to the wire. Eventually, one man, Kieron Pollard made the difference with a whirlwind 87* off 34 balls to help Mumbai edge Chennai in an edge-of-the-seat-thriller. The defending champions won the game by four wickets.
After the loss, CSK skipper MS Dhoni reckoned the pitch at Delhi was ‘brilliant’ and the execution made all the difference. Admitting that CSK dropped catches at crucial junctures, Dhoni said it would hence be harsh to blame the bowlers.
“It was a brilliant wicket. The difference was the execution. Not being too tough on bowlers, we dropped catches at crucial intervals. The bowlers would execute better and learn from this. If you look how it went. we were very off target when it came to execution. It is important to do that. The wicket was easy to hit,” Dhoni said at the presentation.
Dhoni also reckoned that in a tournament like the IPL one losses a few matches and wins some, and hence feels one should not look too much into the points table.
“In a tournament like this, you will win and lose a few close games. When you are under the pump, you learn a lot. Irrespective where we are in the points table, we take one game at a time. We hardly ever focus where we are standing on the table. That has been our good point along the way,” Dhoni concluded.
Despite the win, Mumbai remains at the fourth spot and CSK also stays at the top of the points table. Mumbai has won four out of seven, while Chennai has won five out of seven.