Mumbai, Apr 23 (PTI): Smart adjustments on an unusually sluggish Wankhede surface proved key to Sanju Samson’s fifth IPL hundred as Chennai Super Kings handed Mumbai Indians their biggest-ever defeat in the tournament with a 103-run thrashing on Thursday.
Fresh from guiding India to the T20 World Cup title with three successive match-winning fifties, Samson had a poor start to his CSK stint with three single-digit scores.
But he rediscovered his touch with an unbeaten 115 against Delhi Capitals and followed it up with another unbeaten 101 here, his second ton in four innings.
“I am trying to keep things simple,” Samson said at the post-match presentation.
“Today the wicket wasn’t a normal Wankhede wicket. The ball was holding. So, from there it was just about assessing what the team needed to do.
“We were losing a few wickets so I thought it was important for a settled batsman to stay and that’s what I tried and that’s what happened today.
“The game tells you what to do. You don’t have to come with a preconceived mindset or premeditate that this is how I play and this is what I do. It is my responsibility to understand the game situation and what the team demands and plan around it.
“If we didn’t have the fall of wickets, I’d have gone a bit more earlier, but with the fall of wickets it was important to finish well,” said Samson.
Gaikwad dedicates win to bereaved Mukesh =========================== Chennai Super Kings skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad dedicated the emphatic win to pacer Mukesh Choudhary, whose mother passed away on Tuesday after a prolonged illness. CSK players wore black armbands during the match.
“Pretty tough on him (Mukesh). I would dedicate this win to him,” Gaikwad said.
“Hats off to him, coming in that situation it takes a lot mentally. He came back for the team, for the franchise because he knew we needed him.
“All glory to him. We all wanted to be there for him and chipped away for him.” Mumbai Indians endured a dramatic batting collapse, coming just days after their 99-run win over Gujarat Titans in Ahmedabad.
That only two of the batters — Tilak Varma (37) and Suryakumar Yadav (35) — managed double-digit scores summed up their batting frailty, while chasing a tall 208.
Pandya hints at changes ================ Skipper Hardik Pandya indicated that changes could be on the cards.
“I think that will be the chat where we will go back to again, go forward and figure out what we need to do. We have a couple of days. We just need to see what we can do best,” Pandya said.
He admitted the early wickets in the powerplay proved costly.
“In the powerplay, losing that early wicket is always going to be tricky. You are always chasing the game and we could not cope up after that. The powerplay, losing early wickets it’s always going to be tricky. We couldn’t cope after that. We should have just batted better. They batted on the same pitch.
“Just that Sanju played an outstanding knock and their batters kept coming and chipping away to a decent total,” he added. PTI TAP AM AM
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