Chennai overcome early wobble to re-start IPL with a win

The Chennai Super Kings have overcome a top-order collapse to beat the Mumbai Indians by 20 runs as the Indian Premier League resumed in Dubai following a four-month interruption.

The IPL was suspended in early May, nearly halfway through the Twenty20 competition, after several players from two of the eight franchises tested positive for COVID-19.

The league was finally shifted to the United Arab Emirates, where the T20 World Cup will also be staged next month.

When the action resumed on Sunday, New Zealand fast bowlers Adam Milne (2-21) and Trent Boult (2-35) soon had Chennai, who'd elected to bat, in trouble at 3-7 and then 4-24 inside the batting powerplay.

But opener Ruturaj Gaikwad's unbeaten 88 off 58 balls anchored the three-time champions to 6-156, with Dwayne Bravo hitting what would turn out to be 23 critical runs off eight balls, including three sixes.

Jasprit Bumrah, playing in his 100th IPL game for Mumbai, conceded 15 off the final over after Boult had been smacked for 24 in the penultimate over, which included Bravo's three sixes.

"I felt Rutu (Gaikwad) and Bravo got us more than we expected," said Chennai skipper MS Dhoni.

"(Ambati) Rayudu got injured (retiring hurt at 0 not out), so it was tough to come back from there but we batted sensibly and finished superbly."

Mumbai, without rested captain Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya, struggled in reply against the experienced Bravo (3-25) and Deepak Chahar (2-19) before being restricted to 8-136.

Mumbai lost their two key batsmen - Quinton de Kock (17) and Suryakumar Yadav (3) - early on, with Chahar varying his pace intelligently to get rid of de Kock, while Suryakumar was brilliantly caught by du Plessis, who had to run back and across from mid-on.

Ishan Kishan (11) also holed out off Bravo's slower delivery and, when Josh Hazlewood had stand-in captain Kieron Pollard (15) trapped leg before wicket in the 14th over, Chennai were in control.

Hazlewood, who will be part of Australia's World Cup campaign next month, finished with 1-34 from his four overs.

Chennai are now top with 12 points from eight games, with Mumbai fourth on eight points from their eight matches.

Meanwhile, Virat Kohli will step down as captain of Royal Challengers Bangalore at the end of the season having already announced he will relinquish the captaincy of India in the Twenty20 format after the World Cup.

"(This was) something that was on my mind for a while - to manage my workload which has been immense over the last so many years,” Kohli said in a video message posted on RCB's Twitter account

"I want to continue to be committed to the responsibilities that I'm fulfilling, and I felt I needed the space to refresh, to regroup and be absolutely clear in how I want to move forward."

Kohli, who has led Bangalore since 2013 but has not yet won the world's most lucrative T20 league, said he will continue with Bangalore as a player.

"I've made it clear to the management that I can't think of me being in any other team than RCB," he said. "That has been my commitment from day one. I will continue to be RCB player until I play my last game in the IPL."