Clash of Titans: IPL enters thrilling final week as Mumbai Indians secure spot in play offs

Mumbai Indians did what they had to do in their last league match against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Sunday at their fortress, Wankhede Stadium.

The thanksgiving laps of Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore for their loyal supporters at their home grounds after their last league matches on Sunday, May 21, were quite a contrast. The jubilant MI players and the team management, following their eight-wicket win over Sunrisers Hyderabad, did the lap of honour at the Wankhede Stadium carrying two huge banners with ‘Thank you Mumbai’ and ‘Thank you to the largest family in the world’ written on them while waving a large-sized MI flag.

On the other hand, the disappointed RCB mustered all their energy to trudge around M Chinnaswamy Stadium past midnight, their players commiserating with each other during the walk, following their six-wicket defeat to Gujarat Titans. They had been just knocked out of the Play Offs. Like MI, RCB did what was in their control, posting a competitive total courtesy of Virat Kohli’s brilliant second successive century. But, RCB were outclassed by another equally good century by Shubman Gill, who also notched up his second consecutive one.

MI keep the cool

Mumbai Indians did what they had to do in their last league match against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Sunday at their fortress, Wankhede Stadium. They did not do anything silly to boost their net run rate. They accomplished their main objective of winning at their home ground, something that was within their control, and let the external factors take care of themselves. “We have done everything we can, everything we can control. We have to wait and see,” said MI’s batting hero Cameron Green after the win and before the start of RCB’s match against Titans which was delayed due to rain.

Thanks to a scintillating century by Green (100 not out), who was back to his No. 3 spot, where he has batted his best for MI, to score his maiden T20 hundred and see MI home, Green gave MI the vital two points by going on the offensive from the start. He took on the SRH spinners while his skipper Rohit Sharma took care of their pacers in a 128-run second-wicket partnership.

It was a nervous five-hour wait for MI to know their fate. In the end, it was worth every second as they sneaked in with 16 points while RCB, who’d have been the fourth team to make the Play Offs had they won, were knocked out. Sunrisers Hyderabad head coach Brian Lara said his team was “outmuscled” after going down to MI.

Kohli's 100 in vain

In the same manner, RCB were outmuscled by Titans and especially Gill with Vijay Shankar playing the supporting role.

Not often do you see Kohli’s hundred going in vain. Only one-fourth of his 28 Test centuries and seven of his 46 ODI hundreds have come in losing causes for India. Barring his first IPL hundred against Gujarat Lions in 2016 and his record-making seventh on Sunday, his other five centuries for RCB came in winning causes. It needed an extraordinary century from Gill to obliterate Kohli’s effort and knock them out of IPL 2023. Just like how Kohli’s 100 outclassed SRH’s Heinrich Klaasen’s classic 104 in their penultimate league match, the former skipper got a taste of his own medicine when Gill’s 104 not-out outshone his unbeaten 101, when IPL presented its second instance of a batsman from either side touching three figures in the same match within three days.

The 23-year-old Gill has been in remarkable form in the last six months or so that he has rightfully earned the tag of being the ‘Crown Prince’ to ‘King’ Kohli. Sunday’s batting effort thoroughly justified his claim.

So, the 16th edition also did not prove lucky for RCB as they failed to win their last league match, though they tried their best. Mumbai Indians’ backdoor entry to face Lucknow Super Giants in Wednesday’s Eliminator was largely due to their collective efforts in the recent games after not starting the season well (four defeats in the first seven matches).

They did just like how their star batsman Suryakumar Yadav said on the match eve on Saturday: “We can just sit and watch today’s (Saturday’s) games and when we come tomorrow (Sunday), we will know what is in our hands and what we have to do going forward. We will be focusing on what we have been doing and not what is happening outside. What is working for us, I think, it is important to stick to that and go ahead with it.

“It (SRH) is just another game for us. From the outside, yes, it looks like it is a big game, we have to wait for other results, etc., but we know what we have been doing here at Wankhede in the last four-five games. We know our strengths and strong areas, we back that and we will focus on those areas only.”

Strong line-up

Focus only on those areas, MI did, to give their loyal fans a match to remember. Green, who was acquired for a whopping Rs 17.50 crore, did not disappoint in his maiden IPL experience. Though he had to give his No.3 position to Surya, he got it back on Sunday. He was only pleased to bat at that position. To a question from Moneycontrol.com as to how pleased he was to return to the No.3 position, where he has amassed 348 out of his 381 runs with two fifties and a century and average 58.00, the 23-year-old from Western Australia said: “It never changed throughout the whole tournament. I was always scheduled to come out at No.3. When we have got someone like Suryakumar Yadav at No.4 and we want him to face as many balls as he can, I kind of get slipped down a little bit which is absolutely fine. I have to do whatever I can for the team.”

Green and Surya provide a solid backbone to an already strong line-up with Rohit and Ishan Kishan at the top and to be followed by Tim David and other talented youngsters including Nehal Wadhera and Tilak Varma among others.

Such has been the tough competition for teams this IPL that they had to wait till the last weekend to determine who all entered the Play Offs, and till the last match as to who the fourth team was.

Anybody's game

Now that MI have got a new lifeline by entering the Play Offs, they will be determined to make it count and not just be satisfied with one additional game. They will give their all to win the next three matches – Eliminator, Qualifier 2 and the final – to extend their unmatched five titles to six.

But they have to contend with LSG first, who have made it to the top-four in the points table for the second successive year of their existence, just like Gujarat Titans. LSG have won important games and been consistent to be in the top four and not slipping out of it despite the absence of two of their key players to injury, captain KL Rahul (thigh that required surgery) and left-arm pacer Jaydev Unadkat (left shoulder). With stand-in captain Krunal Pandya marshalling his troops admirably, though occasionally showing emotions on the field when things didn’t go his way, LSG would look to better their last year’s Eliminator exit.

What of the top two teams, Titans and Chennai Super Kings? The defending champions Titans have shown time and again for the second successive year since their entry into the league that they are master chasers. Sunday’s win or loss would have mattered little to the Titans as they’d still have been sitting on top of the table and playing CSK in Qualifier 1. Yet, they did not want to break their momentum and did all they could to carry that winning momentum into the final week of IPL. And, the confidence that Gill’s match-winning century could do to him augurs well not only for Titans but also for Indian cricket going into the World Test Championship final in a fortnight in London.

Victorious skipper Hardik Pandya said on Sunday night after Titans finished with 20 points from 10 wins, same as last year: “I can’t ask for anything better from the boys. Last year, we did well, everything went our way. This year has been a different challenge for us. We were expecting people to challenge us. The way we were thrown at the challenges and the way people put their hands up and showed character was tremendous. A lot of credit goes to all the boys for the way they worked hard throughout.”

With his two back-to-back centuries, Gill skyrocketed to No.2 for the most runs scored (680 at 56.67 and is well positioned to displace RCB skipper Faf du Plessis (730) for the Orange Cap with at least two matches on hand and a maximum of three, should Titans enter the final.

One cannot discount CSK, especially for the presence of a certain Mahendra Singh Dhoni. This IPL has also been all about Dhoni and speculations of this being his last IPL. But with Dhoni, one can never be certain. CSK, the only southern outfit in the final four, owes a lot to Dhoni, who gave a free hand to the batsmen while encouraging the bowlers to get better. Shivam Dube and Ajinkya Rahane with the bat and the improvement of Tushar Deshpande as a new ball bowler and at the death are the best examples of Dhoni waving his magic wand on his players.

An exciting final week of IPL awaits us. It’s anybody’s game. Titans can emulate CSK and MI as the third team to retain the IPL title. CSK can bag their fifth. So can MI their sixth. Why, for that matter, we could have a new winner in LSG.