Watch: Allah Ghazanfar dismisses Ruturaj Gaikwad for 22 during MI vs CSK clash in IPL 2026

The El Clásico of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 between Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and the Mumbai Indians (MI) took place at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, as both sides have struggled to get going in terms of their respective performance in this campaign, with CSK in eighth and seventh position in the points table. 

The home captain, Hardik Pandya, won the toss and decided to bowl first on a high-scoring surface where many predicted that even a score of 220 wouldn’t be safe against a strong batting line-up. The visitors were forced to make a massive change with Kartik Sharma coming in place of Ayush Mhatre.

Ruturaj Gaikwad dismissed for 22 vs MI in IPL 2026

The CSK captain, Ruturaj Gaikwad, who has gone through a very poor campaign with the bat, got a freebie of opening his arms against Hardik on the free hit. The right-handed batter opened his bat face and squeezed the nearly perfect yorker for a boundary in the short third man region. 

On the very next delivery, the Maharashtra batter was prepared for the well-directed short ball and used the pace of the bowler to take it into the fine leg region for a massive six. When clipped the short of a length delivery from Allah Ghazanfar, using the bottom hand, through the mid-wicket region for a boundary, it felt like he had got his mojo back.

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But the celebration for the Super Kings didn’t last long as he was dismissed on the last ball of the third over. Gaikwad made room and looked to loft the ball around the leg stump inside out. But he didn’t get the elevation at all and mistimed it into the hands of the long-off fielder for 22 runs.

He now has 104 runs at an average of 14.85 and a strike rate of 119.54 to continue the struggle.

CSK show aggressive batting inside powerplay

After the dismissal of Gaikwad, the Super Kings needed someone to put the runs in an aggressive mode, and Sanju Samson gave them the momentum with two boundaries and one six. He flicked the third ball into the leg side of the field for a massive six before Sarfaraz Khan joined the party from the other end.

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They finished the first six overs with 73 runs for the loss of two wickets. Sarfaraz also made his way back to the pavilion for 14 runs off eight balls with the help of three boundaries.

Brief Score (at the time of writing): CSK 96/3 (Sanju Samson 47*, AM Ghazanfar 3/21) vs MI

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