Madhwal helps Mumbai eliminate Lucknow

It felt like there was a tangible density to the air during the Chennai Super Kings-Gujarat Titans clash on Tuesday. In comparison, Wednesday was a tad - dare we say - boring.

That Mumbai Indians and Lucknow Super Giants were playing their Eliminator at the MA Chidambaram stadium in Chepauk surely played a part for the crowd, though assembled in surprisingly large numbers, wasn’t really into it.

After all, the stakes were low for the locals since their team was already in the final, and those travelling were hardly a large enough group to make their presence felt.

Pressed to pick whose side the crowd was on, though, it would unequivocally have to be Mumbai. And, Rohit Sharma’s men rewarded the surrogate support by hammering Lucknow Super Giants by 81 runs after setting a total of 183 to march into Qualifier 2.

This win was largely achieved on the shoulders of Akash Madhwal’s astonishing figures of 3.3-0-5-5, including 17 dot balls.

Mumbai will now face the Gujarat Titans in Ahmedabad on Friday, and the winner of that contest will face CSK on Sunday.

Not bad for a side which was all but out of the race for a spot in the play-offs a week ago!

In fact, when Mumbai picked to bat first - it was them veering from the usually concrete stance in chasing - you could tell they were confident.

Sure, stratagem had a part to play for they had not beaten LSG the last three times, and each of these three times, they had chased. Also, dew wasn’t a factor on Tuesday, and so Rohit played his hand and hoped.

The start was decent but it was the propulsion they got from Cameron Green (41), Suryakumar Yadav (33), and Tilak Varma (26) that really got them through some tricky phases.

The fact that they got to 182 for 8 in 20 overs despite Naveen-ul-Haq’s figures of 4-0-38-4, and Yash Thakur’s 4-0-34-3 is telling. It was a case of acceleration when deceleration would have been the conventional route.

And then there was the luck Mumbai needed… no dew.

LSG knew they were staring at a big total, but Mumbai don’t have a formidable bowling line-up so they would have fancied their chances.

LSG lost a couple of quick ones at the top but with Marcus Stoinis batting the way he was, and a decent line-up coming after him, LSG would have hoped for a fight.

Does losing four wickets for 18 runs in 18 balls sound like one?

After Akash Madhwal’s tenth over yielded the wickets of Ayush Badoni and the dangerous Nicholas Pooran, Mumbai knew they had Krunal Pandya’s men on the ropes.

But, certainly, Stoinis was going to keep them going? No.

He ran himself out silly while turning to look at the fielder to see where the throw was headed and collided with Deepak Hooda, who himself was ball-watching. Tim David’s throw was to Stoinis’ end and Ishan Kishan whipped the bails off to reiterate Mumbai’s stronghold on the contest.

Two more ugly run-outs followed, but by then it was established that Mumbai would be going through, and Madhwal added three more wickets. While the Madhwal show was a gem unto itself, the crowd deserved a better contest. LSG know it too.