McCullum, Smith pummel Mumbai Indian

Aakash Chopra: Two Man of the Match awards in three games for Ashish Nehra…well done, mate. Still one of the best Indian pace bowlers. #CSK #IPL

G Rajaraman: Who will stop CSK? And, who will lift Mumbai Indians now? No point blaming their bowlers since they didn’t manage the attack well. #MIvCSK

Dean Jones: The @ChennaiIPL completely , @mipaltan tonight!!! #IPL

Harsha Bhogle: I’m afraid this was a knockout. 183 was not a score to be tossed away nonchalantly. But it was. #CSKvs#MI #PepsiIPL

Freddie Wilde: That was brutal from #CSK. Meanwhile, #MIs bowling was as concerning as their batting. #IPL #MIvCSK

Nehra: ‘I am just working hard. T20 is a format where you don’t get wickets when you are bowling well. It’s important to pick wickets with the new ball. You have to be aggressive if you want to pick wickets. It is a batsman’s game, but I still believe bowlers are the ones who win you matches. If you bowl a good line and length up front, you set the tone. I just try to do the things which I am good at.’

Nehra is the Man of the Match for his bowling figures of 4-0-23-3.

Dhoni: ‘I was more worried about my bowling because it’s a good wicket. We don’t really get surprised if the opposition promotes someone up the order. Bhajji batted well in the last game and maybe that’s why they promoted him. Our plan was to bowl dot balls at him. At times you want to bat first if the unit wasn’t clicking. The reason why we wanted to bowl was because of the dew factor. I felt the first few overs were brilliant from our bowlers. We just want the guys to stay in a positive frame of mind.’
This is a big win for CSK. They’ve made a mockery of a big run chase and won the game with 20 balls to spare. Rohit Sharma and Co. didn’t have answers to the onslaught from McCullum and Smith. The deadly duo muscled the ball to all corners. The fact that even the likes of Malinga was smashed for 33 runs in his first two overs tells about their brutal hitting. Smith completed his fifty off 22 balls and although Harbhajan removed both the openers in the same over, CSK had the match in their bag with the start they got. Raina then got some runs and sealed the game alongside Bravo. CSK were 90/0 in 6 overs, the second best powerplay score in the history of IPL.

Rohit: ‘Pretty disappointed with the way we bowled and our attitude on the field wasn’t right. I thought 183 was a good score, but we didn’t execute our plans with the ball. There’s no way they could score 90 runs in the first six overs. I think that’s where we probably lost the game. We’ve been trying and possibly doing everything but it’s not coming off, but they played well too. At the end of the day you need to get the combination right, that’s what we were trying to do. I know it’s not working out. We know we’ve got to find the right balance. If you don’t win, nothing counts. Pretty disappointed to lose the game. We are not thinking anything right now, relax, take it easy and then think about our next match.’