Mumbai Indians (MI) registered just their third win of the season when they thrashed Chennai Super Kings (CSK) by five wickets on Thursday, May 12, and effectively ended their Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 campaign. The defending champions needed to win all their remaining matches after a dismal start to their campaign, but will not finish in the top-4 for just the second time during their history in the IPL after their loss to MI.
The CSK batters were bundled out for a measly 97 runs in 16 overs, with Daniel Sams picking up three wickets to ensure that the side were en route to their third win of the season. But the match could have gone in a completely different direction after an incident in the opening over of the game involving Sams and CSK opener Devon Conway.
The Decision Review System (DRS) remained unavailable due to power issues at the stadium, which meant that CSK were unable to review the umpire's LBW decision against Conway, resulting in his dismissal. Replays showed that the ball, in all probability, would've been missing the leg-stump meaning that the wicket would not have stood.
Conway was the Super Kings' most consistent batter in their last three games with consecutive half-centuries, and the dismissal that took place was a massive setback for the Dhoni-led team.
Many fans expressed their ire at the unavailability of DRS, including former Indian cricketer Virender Sehwag, who insisted that this was a disadvantage for the CSK. The DRS was made available after the initial few overs of the game; however, CSK had already their top-order batters by then.
"What will happen if there is a power cut? Is the generator only for stadium lights and not for the broadcasters and their systems? If the match was happening then DRS should definitely have been used. Or DRS should not have been used in the entire match because this was a disadvantage for Chennai. If Mumbai were batting first then they would have suffered," Sehwag said on Cricbuzz.
“It was astonishing that DRS was unavailable due to a power cut. It's such a big league that a generator can be used. Whatever software there was, that could have been run with power generated through backup. This is a big question for the BCCI,” he further added.
MI chased down the target with relative ease, despite losing five wickets. Tilak Verma's 32-ball 34 led the charge as Tim David, Hrithik Shokeen and Rohit Sharma scored crucial runs for his team.
