IPL 2017 final: Dhoni doing ‘lungi dance’ with Prabhudheva breaks Net

Rising Pune Supergiants are the dark horse to win this year’s IPL. KKR, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune qualified for the Playoffs and Mumbai and Pune has made it to the finals. While the Supergiant side took the direct route to Hyderabad, beat their final opponents in the first Qualifier, Mumbai had to take the longer route via Bangalore and the second Qualifier versus Kolkata Knight Riders. Mumbai Indians, playing their fourth final, wrapped up their third title, winning by one run.

Earlier, Pune had choked the Mumbai Indians fabled batting line up while restricting them to a paltry score of 129 runs.The clash between the two sides was rightfully dubbed as the “Maharashtra Derby” by fans across the IPL fraternity. As usual Ajinkya Rahane will open the batting and middle order support will be provided by the MS Dhoni, Manoj Tiwari and captain steve smith himself.

Mumbai Indians (MI) Squad Today: LMP Simmons, PA Patel†, AT Rayudu, RG Sharma*, KH Pandya, KA Pollard, HH Pandya, MG Johnson, KV Sharma, JJ Bumrah, SL Malinga. “But in the end, a final is a final and it comes down to that game and who plays best on that day”, Smith said in the pre-match media conference.

How the Mumbai Indians won the IPL of 2017, who knows.

But Pune lost the match, despite a valiant 51 off 50 from Smith, by one run in the last-ball thriller.

He was basically bowling straight breaks, but returned the most economical figures in an IPL final to date.

Rohit hit four boundaries off Lockie Ferguson’s first over and looked set for more before walking back to the dugout as Shardul came up with a ballerina balancing act on the deep mid-wicket boundary to pull off an outstanding catch off leg-spinner Zampa.

Despite Mumbai staring down the barrel, Krunal Pandya led the resurgence against all odds. If you take out losses against Pune, Mumbai’s domination has been near total this season.

Read Also: IPL 2017: Tracing Rising Pune Supergiant and Mumbai Indians’ journey Fleming, a former New Zealand captain, also defended Dhoni this season, despite his renowned finishing power appeared subdued.

Johnson (3-26) and Jasprit Bumrah (2-26) got assistance from the pitch as they turned the screws on Pune with time running out. Nonetheless, Mumbai could only post a mere 129-run target, the lowest in IPL.

This was following the thrilling run chase put up by the Rising Pune Supergiant in Hyderabad.

But just to emphasise the point, there is a movie biopic about him now showing on the in-flight entertainment system of the national carrier who sponsors the Mumbai Indians, last night’s opponents. The likes of Rohit Sharma, who has been below par by his own high standards in IPL, Kieron Pollard and Lendl Simmons have only fired in fits and starts.