On 12th May 2019, Chennai Super Kings faced Mumbai Indians in the IPL 2019 season’s finals. The IPL’s most storied rivalry saw a new chapter where both of them were looking to clinch a record-breaking fourth title win. CSK were the defending champions when they won it the previous year upon their comeback to the sport, while Mumbai has previously defeated CSK twice in an IPL final while also defeating them three times from three matches in the 2019 season.
In this analysis, we use data to analyse the match by looking into the different phases of the game and how each team went about in those phases. Let’s begin the analysis.
De Kock gives MI a solid start
For the majority of the 2019 IPL season, CSK were impressive in the powerplay overs. The likes of Chahar, Harbhajan, and Thakur were solid in containing the opposition’s runs flow throughout the season. This was well aided by the slow wickets and breezy conditions at the Chepauk. The onus was on De Kock to give them a very good start against an inform CSK bowling line-up. De Kock particularly targeted the lack of movement from Chahar to use it to good effect.
We can see from the pitch map of the balls delivered by Chahar to De Kock that Chahar has delivered 58% of his ball at a good length and just outside off-stump. This is to target a good in-swing to De Kock, which is his stock delivery (swinging away from right-handers). Due to lack of movement and coupled with De Kock’s height ensured that the balls coming onto him were of back of length deliveries with no movements. This gave De Kock good chances of freeing his hands and using the pace of the ball to clear the ropes. We can see his wagon wheel below.
Shardul Thakur, on the other hand, was mixing it up by varying the line and length of his deliveries to make up for lack of movement. Though he still conceded a couple of sixes, he was still able to solve the runs flow at the other end. We can see his ball and runs a percentage based on the line and length of his deliveries. 27% of his deliveries of good length and in the middle of the stump. Those deliveries didn’t yield a single run. Whereas when we see the same chart (first image of this analysis) for Chahar we can see that 75% of those were in the good length region, which made him much more predictable.
Thakur strikes to break the opening stand
Thakur’s strategy to mix-up short balls with full-length and good length deliveries paid dividends when De Kock top-edged a short ball into MS Dhoni’s hands during the fifth over. It was a back of length ball that bounced an extra which led to the top-edge. Chahar too followed Thakur’s suit by mixing it up early in the match. His well-delivered slower-ball took an outside edge of Rohit Sharma’s blade again allowing Dhoni to pounce on one. With the openers gone in a span of four balls, it made sure CSK ended the powerplay strongly with the score at 45-2. MS Dhoni decided to remove some pace, by bringing on Harbhajan Singh and followed by Bravo. This along with two new batsmen, Suryakumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan, in the crease, making it easier for CSK to stamp their authority.
We can see the pitch map of Harbhajan Singh in the overs seven and nine. He was accurate with his line and length by constantly trying to target the off-stump, 67% of them pitched there, by pitching the ball outside-off during his stock deliveries. This tremendously slowed the run rate and an economical over in between from Bravo, which saw him concede only three runs, MI found themselves at 58/2 after nine overs.
Back from the strategic timeout, Mumbai decided to shift gears by targeting Bravo in the tenth over. They successfully did by scoring 11 runs against the run of play. Kishan and Yadav punished a few stray deliveries that were delivered. This was followed by another expensive over from Harbhajan Singh. Their pitch map is given below. Around 38% of them were loose deliveries that fetched almost 67% of the runs scored in these overs.
Tahir and Thakur combine to break another dangerous-looking partnership
Throughout the 2019 season, Imran Tahir has been the goto man for MSD when CSK is in need of wickets or control runs flow. Tahir, the purple cap winner that season with 26 wickets, had ensured the CSK dominated the middle-overs to turn the game into their favour. He was brought in the twelfth over and made an immediate impact by dismissing an in-form Yadav through an inside edge on to the stumps. Tahir too was accurate with his line and length. He constantly hit the outside off-stump for both the right-hander (Yadav) and left-hander (Kishan). 83% of the balls were pitched right at the good length and targeted the stumps.
With the arrival of Krunal, another left-hander, everyone expected Dhoni to turn into Harbhajan with two left-handers in the crease. But Dhoni sprung a surprise by bringing in Thakur. It paid off when he grabbed the wicket of Krunal Pandya. The extra bounce offered by the pitch took Pandya by surprise as he top-edged just like De Kock earlier into Dhoni’s hands. This brought in Pollard, who has a history of troubling CSK in the finals. Dhoni went on with Jadeja to not allow Pollard to settle as it is always difficult for right-hander against a left-arm spinner. Jadeja was able to contain Pollard well in the 14th over. Baring a loose full-toss that was dispatched for a six, Tahir bowled another excellent over where he also picked another important wicket of that of Kishan, who was looking dangerous and settling. Tahir bowled a total of four googlies in his three overs, with one of them resulting in a wicket. We can see his overall pitch-map below.
Pollard fights-back to lead Mumbai to a sub-par score
The real entertainment in this format of the game comes with the last five overs. It’s where the batting team decides to go all guns blazing to fire their team to an under-expected total. CSK, in the 2019 season, were the best team in this phase of the game. They had the best economy among all the other teams, 8.52. They also had the most economical bowler in the tournament in these stages, Jadeja (4.37). The likes of Chahar and Thakur have also been impressive, especially Chahar who has bamboozled batsmen with his slower ball. They came up against the best batting team in these stages, MI. MI, before the final, had the best run-rate in the tournament at 11.01. MI had the best death-over batsman that season, Hardik, and one of the best of all-time in the form of Pollard at the crease.
The death-overs started with Jadeja taking the ball. MI decided to play him around for singles while also scoring a boundary, to not let CSK do further damage. He went for eight runs. Next over from Tahir fetched ten runs, all down to one six which was a poorly delivered ball. Tahir pitched it short allowing Pollard to free his arms to dispatch it over deep-midwicket.
Their combined pitch-map showed that 25% of short balls went for 44% of the runs in these two overs. Those couple of loose balls resulted in the discussed boundaries. This was followed by another expensive over from Thakur, 16 runs. Again the choice of deliveries in this over was poor which is illustrated in the map below.
We can see full-tosses, short balls, back of length deliveries which were taken to the cleaners by both Pollard and Hardik Pandya. Deepak Chahar came next and bowled a magnificent over that saw him pick two wickets, Hardik Pandya and Rahul Chahar. He also conceded just four runs to his name, that too of the first ball. The ball to dismiss Hardik Pandya was a well-executed yorker. Despite Pandya staying deep in the crease, Chahar managed to hit the block-hole to trap him plumb in front of the stumps. The following five deliveries resulted in five dots including a wicket of his brother, Rahul Chahar.
In the final over of the innings, it was a battle between Pollard and Bravo. Both of them had friendly yet aggressive exchanges in the past that led to this super showdown. Bravo started the over with three consecutive dots, all of which could have easily been a single which Pollard rejected to take. All of the above deliveries were well-executed wide-yorkers that Pollard found very difficult to deal with. The fourth ball saw Pollard go for a double which resulted in a run-out of McClenaghan. Pollard was able to retain the strike for the final two deliveries and scored boundaries of both of them to end the MI innings on a high.
Pollard scored a vital 25-ball 41 runs that led MI to a total of 149, setting a target of 150 for CSK to chase. We can see his wagon wheel in the image below. Most of his runs have come in the V, with him using his bottom hand to good effect and playing another important inning in a final for MI against CSK.
Mumbai introduce Krunal Pandya in the powerplay
Rohit Sharma has always known to pull a rabbit out of the hat just like his counterpart Dhoni. Whether it’s unconventional fielding setups or bringing a bowler, he always does seem to be unpredictable. His game understanding is brilliant and comparable to that of his former Indian captain. Bringing in Krunal Pandya early in the powerplay doesn’t seem very uncanny given CSK’s openers being right-handers. But knowing that CSK bowlers struggled with movement and also the bounce the pitch has to offer, he decided to stall the runs as early as possible. Krunal despite not being a big spinner of the ball, can deceive the batsman with his clever tricks with pace and line. The fourth over of the innings offered just that. Despite being taken to the cleaners earlier in the over by Faf Du Plessis, he came back strong and had him stumped by deceiving him with pace. We can see the place where the ball is pitched and the ball was delivered at 112.2 km/h.
But CSK ended the powerplay strongly by scoring another 14 runs of Maling in the sixth over. At the end of the powerplay, CSK had a strong foothold in the match with a score of 53/1. The required run-rate too was down at 6.92. The wagon wheel of CSK during this phase is given below. The run flow was equally separated across both sides.
Rahul Chahar and co help Mumbai down CSK in the middle overs
It’s safe to say that the introduction of Rahul Chahar and Jasprit Bumrah by Rohit shifted the game to MI’s favour. At the end of the powerplay, it looked like CSK was about to stroll their way to the title but the young spinner did some lasting damage by removing Suresh Raina with Bumrah following it up by picking the wicket of Rayudu in the 11th over.
We can see over 56% of the deliveries in the overs seven to thirteen haven been pitched in good length. This ensured that CSK struggled for room and space and were cramped most of the time. Rahul Chahar like Tahir varied his deliveries but unliked him constantly hit the good length in each of his deliveries. We can see few of those deliveries being pitched full those were too well executed by the likes of Bumrah and Pandya by bowling a little slower to deceive the CSK batsman. Before his dismissal, Raina was tested by the pace and bounce generated by McClenaghan. Raina’s weakness towards short-pitched deliveries are well documented and the same thought went into Rohit’s mind. He used McClenaghan and almost got him caught behind from a short ball only to be later reversed by DRS. The map showed that almost 40% of the balls delivered by McClenaghan to Raina were of short length. With the extra bounce offered by the pitch, even the good length ones were going high.
Those overs also saw the ill-fated run out of CSK’s inform captain Dhoni. Trying to convert a single into a double after an overthrow, Dhoni found himself marginally short during the second run. At the end of 15 overs with Watson and a new batsman, Bravo, on the crease, CSK found themselves stuttering at 88/4, less than a run a ball. They picked just 35 runs in those nine overs in between.
Watson launches a late counter-attack but goes in vain
Like last year, Watson started out slow early in the innings but once he got settled he was determined to fight all the way till the end to take CSK home. CSK scored 20 runs each in the 16th over of Malinga and 18th over of Krunal. With Bravo scoring just eight runs of them, the majority of the damage was done by Watson. He scored 34 of just 14 balls at a strike rate of 243 in the overs 16-19. His wagon wheel at the death overs given below.
On the other side, Bumrah was keeping the pressure by bowling economical overs that went for just three and nine (in the given context). With a back and forth good overs from CSK and MI, the equation was down to just nine required in the last over. Malinga is someone who has made a career by bailing his team out of these situations. Despite not having the best of tournaments and also a poor showing up until then in the final, he turned back the clock and defended MI. It came down to the last ball with two runs required. Thakur being on the striker’s end was expecting a toe-crusher from Malinga. Thakur was dealt with a well-executed slower ball at 103.4 km/h that trapped him plumb. The pitch map shows how well he executed his deliveries in the final overs. Each and every one of them being yorkers and all of them of varied pace.
Conclusion
The bragging rights went to the Mumbai Indians with them clinching a record-breaking fourth IPL time. Jasprit Bumrah was adjudged the man-of-the-match for his economical spell of 2/14 from his four overs.