May 22-IPL Final

In the end what a final, till last ball it was not certain who will win Mumbai India(MI) or Rising Pune Supergiant (RPS).It was bowlers’ match. It was always said that IPL format is in favour of batsmen , but yesterday night it was proven wrong. It was shown by both the teams that with good/accurate bowling and tight fielding batsmen can be tied down and scoring can be restricted.

RPS really contained MI to  129 runs, and it was surprising that MI played 54 dot balls ie 9 overs in 20 overs game, it must be also some sort of records. With RPS’s opening bowler Jaydev Unadkat striking early with 2 wickets and leaving Mumbai at 8 for 2,  and at one stage they were  79 for 7 and it was 50 runs stand between Krunal Pandya and Johnson which enable MI to reach 129.

RPS started their reply cautiously, and their batsmen never accelerated  the scoring, while in the begining target was easy one but it turned out to be tricky on at the begining of 16th over when 47 runs were still needed. Jasprit Bumrah who has started becoming death over specialists got rid of Dhoni in 17th over, after Smith and Dhoni took 14 runs off Krunal Pandya’s 16th over. All credit to Bumrah and Malinga who gave away only 10 runs in 17th & 18th overs. 19th over by Bumrah yielded 12 runs, and when Johnson started last over 11 runs were still needed by RPS. First ball of last over was hit for 4 by Tiwary, and now 7 runs in 5 balls, but next 2 balls by Johnson brought MI back into the game as in successive  balls he got the wickets of Tiwary and Smith. In the end RSP needed 4 runs in last ball , but they could score 2 runs thus giving victory to MI by one run. This was the closest final ever in IPL. Congratulations to MI.

One last thought, why Ben Stokes was recalled by England cricket board for national duty, when  no match of their was clashing with finals  of IPL. There is one thing certain that other cricket playing boards are jealous of IPL success as now even Australian Board also wants their cricketers to stop playing in IPL, and they are ready to pay them more for playing in domestic cricket, they are black mailing them with the threat that players will be banned otherwise  in a way.

So in the end Boss, it is all about the money.