Well, I don't think that 157 was a good score to defend when your opponent have got players like Rohit Sharma. Everybody knows what he can do. So I believe Delhi Capitals needed more than 170 runs.. may be 180 to defend against strong team Like Mumbai Indians. Everybody expected much tougher competition in the finals, but that wasn't the case. MI easily won the match and lift the title for the 5th time.
After 15 overs, DC was comfortably placed at 118/4. Usually teams get 70 to 80 runs from the last 5 overs, and based on that I was expecting a total of somewhere around 190-200. But they failed to even score 10 runs per over at this stage (they could manage only 36 runs from the last 5 overs). This is the sole reason why they lost the match. Another 20-25 runs could have made a huge difference.
You are correct, as MI bowled well to restrict them to just 36 runs in last 5 overs where they had still 6 wickets left. This would have given some relief as the chase was under 8 an over and the way Rohit started his innings seemed he was set for the target to chase easily and it happened the same. But overall was a good match but not really a tough final that would have expected.
Death bowling I think has always been the strength of Mumbai Indians. I think the few matches that Mumbai lost were actually the ones in which their death bowling failed. Bumrah has become such a dreadful bowler. Boult too got his rhythm in the later part of the tournament. I think Mumbai Indians have invested pretty wisely on their players. They have Rohit, Pollard, Hardik, Krunal and Bumrah since 2013. All they do is pickup a few good foreign players a form a team around these 5 people who are their core. Luckily for them all of these players deliver at the end in some way or the other.
After 15 overs, DC was comfortably placed at 118/4. Usually teams get 70 to 80 runs from the last 5 overs, and based on that I was expecting a total of somewhere around 190-200. But they failed to even score 10 runs per over at this stage (they could manage only 36 runs from the last 5 overs). This is the sole reason why they lost the match. Another 20-25 runs could have made a huge difference.
The failure was the Delhi Capitals top order, when you loose 3 wickets for 22 runs then the rest of the players try to play safe so that they will not loose further wickets and then the pressure to score aggressively in a later stage is not easy, a couple of wickets and their tail will be exposed. With the strong batting line up MI had any addition of runs will not make a difference considering the start they got.
After losing their top 3 batsmen by only 22 runs, no one thought they could score 157 runs. I even thought they would lose all their wickets in 120 runs. Lyre and Pants played much better. Finally, if Hetmyre could add some runs to the scoreboard then maybe DC would be able to score more than 170 runs. The final match was not competitive. Everyone thought MI would be the champion, and they got the title.
I think if we see only the second half of the tournament Delhi didn't really deserved the title in any way. They performed pretty badly in second half. There were other teams who performed much better. I expected SRH to reach the finals as they played much better in the later half. All on all I felt matches in the later half of the IPL much less thrilling.