Chennai, May 6 (IANS) Devon Conway top-scored with 44 while Ruturaj Gaikwad was amazing in his 16-ball 30 to set the base for Chennai Super Kings (CSK) chasing down 140 and beat Mumbai Indians by six wickets in Match 49 of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium on Saturday.
The win also means Chennai recorded their first win over Mumbai at home after 4,777 days, making it just the second time after 2014 that they recorded two league stage wins over the visitors. With the convincing victory, Chennai also climb to second place in the points table, while Mumbai continue to be in sixth position.
Chasing 140, Gaikwad began by lofting and flicking Cameron Green for two fours in the opening over. His onslaught continued in the third over when he effortlessly pulled twice for sixes while punching and driving for two fours off Arshad Khan.
From the other end, Conway got up and running with an exquisite leg glance off Jofra Archer for four and feasted on the pacer’s deliveries by whipping through mid-wicket and cutting hard through backward point for a brace of fours in the fourth over.
Piyush Chawla struck on his very first ball in the fifth over as Gaikwad went for the pull, but ended up skying in the air, giving the wicketkeeper ample time to take the catch. Ajinkya Rahane timed his aerial shots very well for four and six against Chawla, but the leg-spinner had the last laugh by trapping the right-handed batter lbw with a googly in the ninth over.
With spinners becoming hard to hit, Conway and Ambati Rayudu resorted to strike-rotation till the latter danced down the pitch to smack part-time spin of Tristan Stubbs for a mighty six over wide long-on, breaking a 24-ball no-boundary spree.
But on the very next ball, Stubbs changed his angle and had Rayudu slicing a quicker delivery straight to short third man. Shivam Dube added impetus to the chase by pulling and slog-sweeping debutant spinner Raghav Goyal for a brace of sixes in the 14th over.
Though Conway was trapped lbw by Akash Madhwal, Dube swivelled Arshad over fine leg for six, before MS Dhoni calmly finished off the chase with 14 balls to spare via a pull through backward square leg, much to the delight of the yellow-wearing vociferous crowd.
Brief scores:
Mumbai Indians 139/8 in 20 overs (Nehal Wadhera 64; Matheesha Pathirana 3-15, Deepak Chahar 2-18) lost to Chennai Super Kings 140/4 in 17.4 overs (Devon Conway 44, Ruturaj Gaikwad 30; Piyush Chawla 2-25) by six wickets
–IANS
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