If you were one of those punters that put your money on Mumbai Indians winning the 2020 IPL, you will be a happy man. The defending champions cruised to victory in the IPL finals as they defeated the Delhi Capitals by 5 wickets.
Delhi Capitals Strategy Fails
Delhi Capitals failed miserably against the Mumbai Indians in their last two encounters prior to the IPL finals. Delhi knew that they had to come out with a better game plan if they were going to get the better of the Mumbai Indians. Delhi used a brilliant game plan in Qualifier 2 against the Sunrisers Hyderabad by opening with Marcus Stoinis.
They used the same strategy against Mumbai Indians and found themselves in trouble straight away as Stoinis was out first ball. S Dhawan who has been brilliant for Delhi all season failed when it mattered and the experiment of pushing A Rahane to three also failed.
Delhi struggled to get going after the top order collapse. Captain S Iyer (65) and R Pant (56) put together a partnership but they did not score fast enough to get enough runs on the board. The Capitals should have either played S Iyer at three or given S Hetmyer a chance to bat up the order given his brilliant knock in Qualifier 2.
Instead they brought in Hetmyer at 6 when there was very little time for him to get set. The Capitals could only manage to get to 156 which was never going to be enough against the powerful Mumbai Indians.
Trent Boult was the chief destroyer as he picked up 3 wickets and conceded just 30 runs in his 4 overs. His performance was enough to earn him the man of the match award.
Mumbai Indians Establish Dominance
R Sharma opened the batting and delivered for his side when it mattered. The skipper led from the front and made 68 runs of 51 balls that was enough to set up the Mumbai Indians for victory. Sharma has battled a hamstring injury during the IPL and had to sit out for a few games.
However, he was determined to get back into the side for the playoffs and ensure that he could lead the Mumbai Indians to their 5th IPL Championship win. At no point in the chase did the Mumbai Indians look in trouble as S Yadav and I Kishan who have been good all season delivered under pressure.
The Mumbai Indians ended up chasing down the total in the 19th over and won with 5 wickets to spare. This 5th IPL Championship win has established the Mumbai Indians as the most dominant franchise in IPL history. Prior to IPL 2020, there was a debate as to whether the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) or the Mumbai Indians were the most powerful IPL franchise in the tournament.
When CSK entered IPL 2020, they had 3 IPL Championships under their belt and had they won IPL 2020, they would have been tied with the Mumbai Indians on 4 IPL Championships. However, CSK did not even make the playoffs and did not look like the dominant CSK side that they used to be.
Mumbai Indians have established themselves to be the best team in the competition and in less than 6 months will once again start as the betting favorites for IPL 2021.
IPL 2020 Awards
The most valuable player (MVP) of IPL 2020 was given to Jofra Archer from the Rajasthan Royals. The purple cap which goes to the bowler with the most number of the wickets in the tournament went to KG Rabada and the orange cap which goes to the batsman with the most number of runs went to KL Rahul. Mumbai Indians also went on to win the fairplay award.
