Chennai Super Kings held their nerves to defeat Mumbai Indians in their IPL 2025 opener at the MA Chidambaram Stadium. Chasing a target of 156 at Chepauk, Rachin Ravindra's unbeaten half-century pipped the impressive debut from youngster Vignesh Puthur as the Super Kings chased the target down with four wickets in hand. With this win, CSK have kept MI winless in their IPL openers for the last 13 seasons now.
Vignesh, the Kerala spinner, was pretty impressive on his IPL debut as he took crucial wickets to keep his team in the game. However, Rachin was at his best as his unbeaten fifty helped the Super Kings survive the impressive spell of 3/32 on debut.
Rachin held the chase perfectly. On conditions that seemed to be typical Chepauk which had grip for the bowlers. Ruturaj Gaikwad and Rachin provided CSK with a strong start after the Super Kings lost Rahul Tripathi early. While the impressive Vignesh dismissed Gaikwad, Rachin carried on. Vignesh got two more wickets in Shivam Dube and Deepak Hooda as he kept his impressive debut going.
When Will Jacks got Sam Curran, there was a sense of comeback from MI. CSK kept losing wickets at regular intervals with MS Dhoni coming out to bat at No.8 and sending the Chepuak fans in euphoria. A huge round of cheers met the former CSK captain on the field. However, he did not contribute anything, going unbeaten on 0 from 2 balls. With four needed off the last over, Rachin struck a six off Mitchell Santner to take CSK to a win in a middling chase.
Earlier, Noor Ahmad starred with the ball, taking four wickets in his four overs for 18. His bowling kept MI in check as the visitors kept losing wickets at regular intervals. Tilak Varma and Suryakumar Yadav had a strong phase in the middle after losing the openers. Tilak made 31, while SKY scored 29 to take the team over 100. Deepak Chahar provided the final fireworks with the bat with a 15-ball 28 to take MI over 150 and something to bowl at, which wasn't enough at the end.