The Wankhede track didn’t play true to its nature and was unusually slow during Mumbai Indians vs Chennai Super Kings IPL match on Thursday. On that wicket where the ball was holding up, Sanju Samson slammed his fifth IPL hundred as CSK handed MI a 103-run thrashing, their biggest-ever defeat in the tournament.
Leading up to IPL 2026 with a new franchise (CSK), Sanju played a pivotal role in guiding India to the T20 World Cup title with three successive match-winning fifties. But he had a poor start to the season returning three single-digit scores.
But he bounced back brilliantly with an unbeaten 115 against Delhi Capitals, following it up with another unbeaten 101 on Thursday, his second century in four innings.
“I am trying to keep things simple,” Samson said at the post-match presentation.
“Today the wicket wasn’t a normal Wankhede wicket. The ball was holding. So, from there it was just about assessing what the team needed to do.
“We were losing a few wickets so I thought it was important for a settled batsman to stay and that’s what I tried and that’s what happened today.
“The game tells you what to do. You don’t have to come with a preconceived mindset or premeditate that this is how I play and this is what I do. It is my responsibility to understand the game situation and what the team demands and plan around it.
“If we didn’t have the fall of wickets, I’d have gone a bit more earlier, but with the fall of wickets it was important to finish well,” said Samson.
On the other hand, MI skipper Hardik Pandya indicated that changes could be on the cards ahed of the next game.
“I think that will be the chat where we will go back to again, go forward and figure out what we need to do. We have a couple of days. We just need to see what we can do best,” Pandya said.
He admitted that early wickets in the powerplay proved costly and expected a better show from his batters.
“In the powerplay, losing that early wicket is always going to be tricky. You are always chasing the game and we could not cope up after that. We should have just batted better,” said Pandya.
“Just that Sanju played an outstanding knock and their batters kept coming and chipping away to a decent total,” he added.
