Dhoni and Washington Sundar puts Pune to their first ever IPL finals.
League matches are completed and the stage is all set for big qualifiers of VIVO IPL 10. So the first qualifiers of IPL are between league toppers Mumbai Indians and the second placed team Rising Pune Supergiant. It has been a terrific season for Rising Pune supergiant as they seem to have risen from ashes of their poor performance of the previous year.
Wankhede witness the first qualifier between Mumbai Indians and Rising Pune supergiant. Mumbai Indians have won the toss and choose to field first. Pune has lost their key players Ben Strokes andImran Tahir due to national duty whereas Mumbai will have the backing of key players like Malinga, and Bumrah who miss their last match against Kolkata knight Riders.
The opening hasn’t been good for Pune this season as Rahul Tripathi failed to connect with bat and his middle stumps got knocked out of the ground all smiles for Mitchell McClenaghan. Steven Smith replaces Rahul but he too failed to score and felt for a slower delivery from Lasith Malinga. At the end of 2 overs, the score was 9/2. Ajinkya Rahane and Manoj Tiwary and played some sensible shots with 80 runs partnership between them and provided good momentum. 
Ajinkya Rahane played good shots and scored his fifty and right then he was looking to accelerate he was adjusting Lbw from a googly from Karn Sharma. M.S. Dhoni replaces Rahane and he started as usual with some defensive approach. Manoj Tiwary was playing his shots from other ends and completed his fifty. It was 18th over of the match and the score was 120/3 to everyone’s expectation first Tiwary played fancy shots for a four and a six on a free hit then came the big man Dhoni and then he dispatched a couple of sixes into the stands making the biggest over of the match to 26 runs. Then came the fascinating last over from Bumrah were again Dhoni hit consecutive balls for sixes and the fitting spirit from Pune and Dhoni finally gives Rising Pune Supergiant a fitting total of 162/4. Dhoni scored 40 runs off 26 balls with enormous 5 sixes. Second innings of the match started as on high as Parthiv Patel started attacking Pune
Second innings of the match started as on high as Parthiv Patel started attacking Pune bowlers with some handsome sixes. On the other hand, Lendl Simmons was finding it difficult to connect with the bat. Mumbai was steady towards chase and right then a straighter ball from Shardul Thakur and Parthiv played a straight drive but it was not the type of luck for Simmons as Thakur managed to put some fingers on it and thus was adjust run-out. This mark the fall of Mumbai Indians as the very next over from Washington Sundar managed to took two big wickets of Rohit Sharma and Ambati Rayudu. Although it was an Umpiring error to adjust Rohit Sharma Lbw as there was a thick inside edge onto the pads. Mumbai never looked settled from those early shocks and none of their batsmen looked to take the responsibility to score the runs except for Parthiv who score a handy fifty. So at the end, Rising Pune Supergiant managed to beat Mumbai Indians at their home ground with 20 runs. For Pune, it’s their young bowling department who won the match of Pune with the accurate line as Washington sunder and Shardul Thakur bags 3 wickets each while Unadkat and Ferguson took one each.
MATCH STATS:
- Rising Pune Supergiant have defeated Mumbai Indians all three times they have faced this season.
- Ajinkya Rahane completed 3000 runs in IPL career.
- Mumbai still has chance for their final if they managed to beat the winner of eliminator between KKR and SRH.
