Cricket fans celebrated a blockbuster Sunday where arch-rivals Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians squared off against each other in their first match of IPL 2025. In the high voltage clash, Chennai emerged victorious by four wickets as MI continued their 13-year long streak of losing the opening match. Playing at the iconic Chepauk, Ruturaj Gaikwad and co won opted to bowl and restricted MI at 155/9 in 20 overs. Later, CSK chased down the target with five balls to spare after Rachin Ravindra scored an unbeaten 65 off 45 balls.
Despite being on the losing side, MI saw a silver lining in their side as young spinner Vignesh Puthur impressed everyone on his IPL debut. The 24-year-old spinner was called-in as an impact player and claimed three big wickets in the form of Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shivam Dube, and Deepak Hooda.
Though Mumbai lost the match, it was only Vignesh’s performance which kept them in the game. After CSK finished the chase with a winning six, the players congratulated and greeted each other. Amid these handshakes, CSK star MS Dhoni’s gesture for Vignesh won everyone’s heart.
As Dhoni was shaking hands with everyone, he especially gave an adorable pat on Vignesh’s back and applauded him for his heroic IPL debut. Seeing this, commentator Ravi Shastri said, “Pat on the shoulder for young Vignesh Puthur. I don’t think he will forget it for a long time.”
The men in take home the honours!
A classic clash in Chennai ends in the favour of #CSK
Scorecard https://t.co/QlMj4G7kV0#TATAIPL | #CSKvMI | @ChennaiIPL pic.twitter.com/ZGPkkmsRHe
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) March 23, 2025
After the game, MI skipper Suryakumar Yadav praised Vignesh for his brilliant spell and credited the scouting team of Mumbai for finding such players.
“Amazing, MI is known for that – giving youngsters opportunities, the scouts do this for 10 months and he (Vignesh) is a product of that. I kept his one over in the pocket if the game went deep, but it was a no-brainer to give him the 18th over. There wasn’t any dew, but it was sticky, the way Ruturaj batted in the second innings took the game away from us. It is a long way away,” said Suryakumar Yadav after the match.
Fifties by Rachin (65*) and captain Gaikwad (53) helped CSK kickstart their IPL 2025 campaign with a four-wicket win over MI. Earlier, Noor Ahmad’s 4-18 and Khaleel Ahmed’s 3-29 helped CSK restrict MI to 155/9.
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