The defending champions Mumbai Indians are out of the tournament as they lost to Chennai Super Kings by 7 wickets in the first eliminator at Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai after a terrific comeback. By batting first Mumbai Indians managed to score 173 runs in their 20 overs by losing 8 wickets. Lendl Simmons and Michael Hussey opened the innings for Mumbai and they did it quite brilliantly. Simmons scored 67 runs of 44 balls and Hussey supported him with a 39 runs of innings by playing 33 balls.
Unfortunately, MI lost the grip of the match in the middle of the first innings as they lost some quick wickets while trying to produce some quick runs. After a brilliant opening partnership at some point everyone thought MI would score 200 plus runs but Corey Anderson, Rohit Sharma (C), Kieron Pollard, Ambati Rayudu they all failed to carry away the innings to the last ball.
Mohit Sharma got the Purple Cap back by claiming 3 wickets in the match. Ravindra Jadeja and Ashish Nehra also shared 4 wickets equally.
Chennai Super Kings once again chased it brilliantly but umpires took some wrong decision yet again during the match. Anyway, Dwayne Smith and Faf du Plessis got the momentum of the match from the very beginning as they scored 24 runs of 20 balls and 35 runs of 20 balls respectively. After Harbhajan Singh took them off in one over, MI got some hope in the match but by brushing away all the hopes that Mumbai had Suresh Raina and David Hussey made a match winnings partnership. Raina Claimed the Man of the Match award by scoring 54 runs of just 33 balls and Hussey did his job decently by hitting 40 valuable runs in just 29 balls.
Among the bowlers of MI only Harbhajan Singh showed some potential as he claimed 2 important wickets by considering 27 runs but MI’s bowling attack was not good enough to collapse the middle order of CSK. So, it will be an encounter between Chennai and Punjab in the second Eliminator of IPL 7 while Kolkata is already in the final.