Delhi eliminates defending champion Mumbai from IPL playoffs

Delhi eliminates defending champion Mumbai from IPL playoffs

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 6:13 p.m. ET

PUNE, India (AP) Chennai Super Kings ended Kings XI Punjab's IPL hopes with a five-wicket win and Delhi Daredevils stopped defending champion Mumbai Indians from advancing with an 11-run victory on Sunday.

Punjab needed to restrict Chennai to 100 for a place in the Indian Premier League playoffs after it was bowled out for 153 with two balls left. But Suresh Raina's unbeaten 61 off 48 balls led Chennai to 159-5 with five balls to spare.

Sunrisers Hyderabad pushed Chennai to No. 2 on the leaderboard because of a better run-rate after both teams finished on 18 points.

Mumbai's defeat helped Rajasthan Royals go into the playoffs with 14 points along with Kolkata Knight Riders on 16 points. Punjab finished on 12 points.

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Hyderabad will take on Chennai in Qualifier 1 on Tuesday with the winner going through to the final on Sunday.

Rajasthan meets Kolkata in Eliminator 1 on Wednesday and the winner will take on the loser of Qualifier 1 on Friday for a place in the final.

Chennai chose to shuffle its batting order and it paid dividends as Deepak Chahar made 39 off 20 balls and Harbhajan Singh, dropped on the second ball, scored 19.

Raina then took charge and hammered the tournament's leading wicket-taker, Andrew Tye, for 22 runs in the 19th over as Dhoni brought up the victory with a six off Mohit Sharma's first ball in the last over.

Earlier, fast bowler Lungi Ngidi finished with 4-10 to restrict Punjab after Dhoni won the toss and elected to field.

The tall South African struck two early blows as Punjab lost three wickets in the first four overs, including big hitters Chris Gayle (0) and Lokesh Rahul (7).

Karun Nair (54 off 26) and Manoj Tiwary (35 off 30) made decent contributions to lift the total before Ngidi returned and chipped in with two more wickets in his last over.

Mumbai needed a win to have a chance of finishing among the top four, but legspinners Amit Mishra and 17-year-old Sandeep Lamichhane of Nepal grabbed three wickets each to dismiss Mumbai for 163 in 19.3 overs.

Delhi, which won the toss and chose to bat, scored 174-4 with Rishabh Pant smashing 64 off 44 balls and Vijay Shankar propelling the total with an unbeaten 43 off 30.

Mumbai finished with 12 points, losing eight matches, while Delhi ended up last with 10 points from five victories.

Lamichhane (3-36) hurt Mumbai early when Suryakumar Yadav couldn't read the googly and got the leading edge in the legspinner's first over.

Evin Lewis, who was dropped on eight at covers by Shankar, went on to smash three fours and four sixes in his 48 off 31 before Mishra (3-19) struck in his first two overs.

Ishan Kishan (5) holed out at long-on to Shankar, and Lewis misread Mishra's googly and was stumped by Pant.

Glenn Maxwell then brought up two sensational relay catches close to the long-on boundary to result in the dismissals of Kieron Pollard (7) and Rohit (13) as Mumbai stuttered at 122-7 in the 15th over.

Australia's Ben Cutting gave Mumbai a glimmer of hope with a quickfire 37 off 20 before falling to seamer Harshal Patel (3-28) in the last over.

Earlier, Pant and Shankar steadied Delhi's innings in the middle overs with a 64-run fourth-wicket stand. Left-arm spinner Krunal Pandya broke the stand in the 17th over when Pant was caught at long-on after hitting four fours and four sixes.

But Shankar and Abhishek Sharma (15 not out) added 35 as Delhi got enough runs on board to end Mumbai's run in the tournament.

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