After months of delay, the 13th season of the Indian Premier League finally got underway on Saturday in Abu Dhabi with Chennai Super Kings taking on Mumbai Indians in the season-opener.
Mumbai batted first and posted 162/9 and in reply, CSK had Ambati Rayudu and Faf du Plessis scoring half centuries as they won the match by 5 wickets.
Here’s a look at some of the important moments of the match, in pictures:
Deepak Chahar started the proceedings for CSK with the first ball of Dream 11 IPL 2020.
This was, in fact, the third successive season that Chahar has bowled the first ball of the tournament.
MI skipper Rohit Sharma started the inning with Quinton de Kock and he kicked things off with a boundary off the very first ball itself.
Rohit stood inside the crease and drove the ball off the covers for a four.
Piyush Chawla got the first breakthrough for CSK by taking the wicket of MI skipper Rohit Sharma.
After 4 overs, Mumbai had 45/0 on the board when Dhoni called the leg-spinner into play and on the fourth ball, Chawla proved just why CSK had shelled out Rs 6.75 crore for him in the IPL auction in December.
Saurabh Tiwary looked in a great touch and was seen smashing the bowlers. He scored 42 runs in just 31 balls with the help of 3 cracking boundaries and 1 gigantic six. After a very fine inning, he was dismissed by Ravindra Jadeja.
His 42 was Mumbai’s highest score of the match.
Kieron Pollard showed his power-hitting but he failed to make a mark in Saturday’s match as he only scored 18 runs off 14 balls, with only 1 boundary and a six.
He was dismissed by Lungi Ngidi after 14.1 overs, reducing Mumbai to 121/4.
With Mumbai at 124/5 in 14.5 overs, Faf du Plessis took a blinder to see off danger-man Hardik Pandya who had smashed two sixes as soon as he came on the crease.
CSK needed 163 runs to win this match against MI. CSK’s bowlers bowled brilliantly to restrict MI to 162. All eyes were on MS Dhoni who was playing the game for after over 400 days.
Trent Boult started the proceedings for MI and took the wicket of CSK opener Shane Watson in his very first over.
Boult’s in-swinging delivery hit the pads of Watson and the umpire gave the Aussie his marching orders.
Faf du Plessis batted brilliantly in the game against MI to save his team from danger. the South African batter played a crucial knock 58 runs in just 44 balls.
Ambati Rayudu played a brilliant knock and scored the first half century of IPL 2020. Along with du Plessis, he controlled the CSK innings after the early wickets and put his team in a strong position.
It was an uncharacteristic outing for Jasprit Bumrah who was not as productive as he would’ve liked.
The pacer conceded 43 runs and picked the wicket of Sam Curran in his 4 over spell, proving to be a bit expensive for Mumbai Indians.
At the fall of Curran’s wicket, MS Dhoni finally walked out to bat and joined Faf du Plessis in the middle.
CSK needed 5 runs from the last over and the skipper remained on a duck as Faf smashed the winnings runs to take the team home.
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