Only twice have the final of an IPL finished with the margin of victory being one run and on both occassions, Mumbai Indians were on the winning side.
The final of a tournament can be a rather strange affairs. It is easily the most important match of the entire event and receives more buildup than any other game in it and yet, they at times become one-sided affairs and thus fail to live up to those expectations. That is exactly the opposite of what happened in the finals of the 2017 and 2019 Indian Premier League (IPL) seasons, both of which were won by the Mumbai Indians by a margin of one run.
Only two IPL finals have finished with a one-run margin of victory, with MI on the winning side on both occassions(BCCI)
These are the only two finals out of the 17 that have been played thus far to have a margin of victory of a singular run. For MI fans, it would be impossible to choose which one felt better, although some might say the second as it is closer to memory. MI defended the title they won in 2019 but are yet to add another to that set since then, after all. Let’s take a trip down memory lane and revisit those two epic finals.
1. MI vs RPS, IPL 2017
Hyderabad was the host venue and MI batted first. It seemed like they were batting in the wrong format, with the score reading 56/4 when captain Rohit Sharma fell off the first ball of the 11th over. Krunal Pandya, Kieron Pollard and Hardik Pandya scraped together a late dash of sorts to take MI to a score of 129/8, at which point most would’ve thought it is game over for them.
Not Mitchell Johnson, Jasprit Bumrah and Lasith Malinga, though, who went on to put on the same chokehold on the RPS batters as theirs suffered earlier in the day. They were also not helped by a lack of aggression from Ajinkya Rahane and Steve Smith through the powerplay, which meant that by the time the latter fell to Jonson in the 12th over thanks to a sensational catch by Pollard, RPS were well behind the required rate. It all came down to RPS needing 11 to win off the last over and Johnson took wickets off the second and third balls after Manoj Tiwary hit his first ball for four. Still, RPS scraped together three runs off the next two balls, leaving them needing four off the last ball, three to force the final into a Super Over. The ball was hit to deep square leg by Dan Christian, there was as slight fumble but J Suchith recovered and fired a wonderful throw on top of the stumps for Parthiv Patel to whip off the bails. The batters ran two and so the margin of victory was one run.
2. MI vs CSK, IPL 2019
Hyderabad was the venue again and this time, it threw up a final for the ages. The 2019 title decided twisted and turned like a coiled snake before finally coughing up a result. Pollard’s late charge got him 41 runs off 25 balls and took MI to 149/8 batting first but the real story is the CSK chase.
It had looked like Shane Watson is set to lead them to a second consecutive title for the second year on the trot and CSK had the chase in their bags really for the first 10 overs, at the end of which they were 72/2. Then came a choke powered by Bumrah, Rahul Chahar and Hardik Pandya. Incredibly, the pressure relief came in an over bowled by Malinga of all people with Dwayne Bravo hitting a six off the first ball of the 16th and then Watson hitting a hat-trick of fours after that. Bumrah then gave just four runs in the 17th but then Watson hit Krunal Pandya for a hat-trick of sixes in the next over to bring CSK right back again. Matters seemed to have got worse for MI when wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock’s mistake let the last ball of the 19th over go for four byes and CSK needed nine to win off the last over. Rohit threw the ball back to Malinga and this time, the Sri Lankan great delivered. Watson was run out off the fourth ball and then Shardul Thakur was out LBW off the last.
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