The IPL 2023 came to a rousing end with Chennai Super Kings winning off the final ball in a brilliant and epic match against a formidable Gujarat Titans . It has been a brilliant IPL season all around with some highly close finishes and some outstanding batting in particular . Probably the two best teams have reached the finals and the team with the longer batting depth has won . Below we review the 4 playoff teams this season , all of whom had some great moments in this season
Also read : EVEN DHONI GOT EMOTIONAL IN POST MATCH SCENES AFTER SENSATIONAL WIN
Chennai Super Kings
CSK started the season on a struggling note with injuries to their premier fast bowlers with Deepak Chahar, Mukesh Chowdhary and Simarjeet Singh on injured list . However Dhoni showed outstanding resilience by fighting with whatever bowling resources he had and created a fine death option in a young Sri Lankan quick with unorthodox style , Matheesha Pathirana . Later Deepak Chahar also recovered from injury and MS Dhoni finally had a good bowling core by the business end of the tournament. As usual he used his spinners skillfully as CSK kept winning enough to be within striking distance from the playoffs . The batting was of course outstanding and Ajinkya Rahane had a great comeback after being wonderfully backed by Dhoni at number 3 spot . This was probably the most challenging season for Dhoni the captain and he came out with flying colours ,ultimately winning the 5th IPL title .
For CSK the best performers this season were Devon Conway (672 runs , 52 average , 139.70 strike rate ) , Ruturaj Gaikwad ( 590 runs, 42 average , 148 strike rate ) , Shivam Dube 418 runs, 38 average, 158 strike rate), Ajinkya Rahane ( 326 runs, 32.60 average, 172 strike rate) , Tushar Deshpande ( 21 wkts, 9.92 economy), Matheesha Pathirana (19 wkts , 8 economy), Ravindra Jadeja ( 20 wkts, 7.56 economy, 190 runs ,143 strike rate )
Gujarat Titans
Titans were the best team during the league phase . A team which doesnt believe in too many changes , showed great stability and did not get affected at all by the early season injury to Kane Williamson . Hardik Pandya led the team astutely with great performances from Gill, Shami, Rashid , Noor and some great promise shown by Sai Sudharsan , Josh Little and a few others. Mohit Sharma made a great comeback from wilderness to become one of the top wicket takers this season. Throughout the league phase they were dominant and never looked in any danger of not qualifying for playoffs but in the playoffs they had a poor 1st Qualifier outing vs CSK though they came back well and was almost within 2 balls from winning the 2nd successive IPL title . Some of their best performers were Shubman Gill ( 890 runs, 59 average, 158 strike rate ), Sai Sudharsan (362 runs, 52 average , 141 strike rate ) , Hardik Pandya (346 runs , 31 average ,136.45 strike rate , 3 wickets) , Vijay Shankar ( 301 runs, 37.62 average, 160 strike rate) , Saha ( 371 runs , 24 average, 129 strike rate), Rashid Khan ( 130 runs , 32 average, 216 strike rate, 27 wickets, 8.23 economy) , Mohammed Shami ( 28 wickets, 8.03 economy ) , Mohit Sharma (27 wickets , 8.17 economy ) and Noor Ahmed (16 wkts, 7.82 economy ) .
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Mumbai Indians:
Like CSK , Mumbai had similar issues in their bowling attack with injuries to Bumrah and Archer. While Bumrah missed IPL , Archer left after playing few games. Thus it was an uphill struggle for skipper Rohit Sharma to get his team going and Mumbai struggled in the initial phase . However good bowling by Piyush Chawla and unearthing of a special talent in Akash Madhwal who can bowl fast yorkers and brilliant batting by their batters finally helped them to reach the playoffs which speaks highly of Rohit the captain . The best performers for Mumbai this season were Surya Kumar Yadav (605 runs , 43 average, 181 strike rate ) , Cameron Green (452 runs, 50 average, 160 strike rate, 6 wkts, 9.50 economy ) , Tilak Verma (343 runs, 42.87 average, 164 strike rate ) , Ishan Kishan ( 454 runs, 30 average, 143 strike rate), Piyush Chawla (22 wickets, 22.50 average, 8.11 economy ) and Akash Madwal ( 14 wickets in just 8 matches , 8.58 economy ). However Rohit Sharma (332 runs , 20 average ,133 strike rate ) had a disappointing season as a batter.
Lucknow Supergiants
LSG had a very roller coaster season . They pulled off some impressive wins but lost few games they should have won and just about managed to sneak into the playoffs . They had their injury issues losing their regular captain KL Rahul mid season due to injury and Krunal Pandya had to take over . On the bowling front they had injury issues with Mohsin Khan while Avesh Khan suffered form loss . Also the impressive Mark Wood could not play many games due to family commitments. Krunal did just enough as a captain to take LSG to playoffs ( 2nd time in two years) but were outclassed by Mumbai in the eliminator . For LSG their Indian batters failed to perform and they had to over rely on their overseas talents. For LSG , their best performers were Marcus Stoinis ( 408 runs, 31 average, 150 strike rate, 5 wickets , 9 economy ), Nicholas Pooran ( 358 runs , 29.83 average, 173 strike rate) , Kyle Mayers ( 379 runs , 29 average, 144 strike rate) , Mark Wood ( 11 wickets in just 4 matches , 8.12 economy) and Ravi Bishnoi ( 16 wickets, 7.74 economy) .