Notorious for their slow starts to the IPL, MI started off slow again with former captain Rohit Sharma scoring a four-ball duck. Khaleel drew just enough seam movement to make a big hit difficult before getting what looked like soft wickets: Rohit caught at forward square leg and Ryan Rickelton playing on. R Ashwin, back in yellow, took his 91st IPL wicket for CSK in his first over back, reducing MI to 36 for 3 in 4.4 overs.
MI now needed their engine room of Tilak Varma and Suryakumar Yadav to rescue them and take them to a fighting total. For a while they stayed in the contest with a 51-run fourth-wicket stand, but this is when Noor began to strike. Suryakumar was stumped spectacularly off a wrong’un, debuant Robin Minz fell under the pressure of a slow start, Tilak was trapped on the crease by another wrong’un, and Noor capped it by bowling right-hand batter Naman Dhir around his legs with another wrong’un.
Nathan Ellis, another CSK newcomer, then got the wicket of former CSK player Mitchell Santner, reducing chances of a late fightback. It did arrive, though, in the shape of a Deepak Chahar cameo of 28 off 15.
