Richard Levi’s 50 runs off 35 balls helped Mumbai Indians to register an easy win against defending champions Chennai Super Kings by 8 wickets in the opening match of this season IPL5 at Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai.
Chasing a modest 113 run target, Levi put on 69 runs partnering with master blaster Sachem Tendulkar (16) who was retired hurt after a bouncer from Bollinger hit his glove.
On the other hand James Franklinn (25 not out) and Ambati Rayudu (18 not out) took the game away from CSK and got an easy win against them.
MI started the innings with the right note with excellent fielding and bowling as Lasith Malinga, Keiron Pollard and Pragyan Ojha taken 2 wickets each and restricted defending champions Super Kings to 113 all out.
Dwayne Bravo ended the innings of Richard Levi who added 69 partnerships with master blaster. Rohit Sharma, on the other hand, was dismissed for 0 by Doug Bollinger in the ninth over.
Electing to field first, MI played a sensible innings and were quite aggressive in the fielding area under the captaincy of Harbhanjan Singh.
Chennai Super Kings lost some quick wickets in the early stage and failed to build a competitive score against MI as they lost top order batsman inside 10 over.
Suresh Raina (36) was the only leading run scorer in CSK side, by hitting a six and two boundaries facing 26 balls before becoming Ojha’s first victim. CSK had a disastrous start when opener Du Plessis was sent to pavilion in the first over itself.
With such a poor start in the home ground CSK have to examine the loop holes in its first match to have a strong hold in the coming matches.