It has been a strange season for Mumbai Indians, who have blown hot and cold in IPL 2023.
While in some games they have come up with some dominating performances and completely outplayed their opponents, in others they have been at the receiving end of some heavy defeats.
It was another forgettable outing for Mumbai Indians against Chennai Super Kings this season as they suffered a six-wicket thrashing in Chennai on Saturday.
In fact, this was only the second time in the history of IPL that CSK had beaten Mumbai Indians in both the league games in a season, having last done the same way back in 2014.
CSK also continued their good recent run against MI, registering the fourth victory against them in the last five matches.
Mumbai's batting flopped big time as they came undone against the CSK pace trio. Rohit Sharma, who has struggled for runs this season, demoted himself to No 3 but fell for his second successive duck as he attempted a rash scoop shot against Deepak Chahar, but could only miscue a simple catch to Ravindra Jadeja at point.
Rohit has tallied 184 runs in nine matches this season with just one 50 at a strike rate of 129.
It was a horror start for Mumbai, who lost Cameron Green (6) to Tushar Deshpande in the second over, before Chahar sent back Ishan Kishan (7) and Rohit in the space of four deliveries in the next over.
It was a body blow for MI, who struggled to get back on track after the poor start. They were reeling on 34/3 after the six overs of Powerplay.
And when Suryakumar Yadav fell to Ravindra Jadeja for 26, there was no coming back for the visitors.
The young Nehal Wadhera battled hard for his half-century but CSK's death overs specialist Matheesha Pathirana ripped apart MI's batting in the death overs.
He dented MI's hopes of quick runs at the end, by dismissing the well-set Wadhera for 64 from 51 balls in the 18th over. Tim David perished to Deshpande for 2 and Pathirana struck twice in the last over as MI were restricted to a below-par 139/8 in their 20 overs.
Just like their start, MI also floundered in the end overs as they lost four wickets for 17 runs in the last three overs.
Pathirana was simply superb with his death bowling, as he finished with 3/15 in his four overs, which included 12 dot balls.
He conceded just seven runs in his final two overs -- the 18th and 20th overs -- while taking three wickets to choke Mumbai at the end.
