The season that started in March
The twelfth IPL was squeezed. India had a World Cup in England from the end of May and a general election at home, so the BCCI began the season on 23 March and finished it on 12 May, leaving the mandatory fifteen-day gap before India's first World Cup match. For a while it looked like the whole thing might be moved to the UAE or South Africa because of the polls. In the end it stayed in India, with venues shuffled around the election calendar.
Delhi Daredevils had become Delhi Capitals over the winter. New name, new logo, same franchise that had spent a decade finding ways to lose. This time they made the playoffs, beat Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Eliminator at Visakhapatnam and lost Qualifier 2 to Chennai on the same ground. It was the best season the franchise had had in years.
David Warner came back from his suspension and made 692 runs in twelve matches, including a hundred, and took the Orange Cap. Imran Tahir, 40 years old, took 26 wickets for Chennai and the Purple Cap. Andre Russell was named Most Valuable Player for a Kolkata side that missed the playoffs, which tells you how far outside the normal range his hitting was that year. Alzarri Joseph took 6 for 12 on IPL debut against Sunrisers, the best figures in the competition's history.
Two runs, one ball, Malinga
Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings had already met three times that season and Mumbai had won all three. The final at Hyderabad on 12 May was the fourth. Rohit batted first, and Deepak Chahar and Shardul Thakur kept it tight enough that Mumbai only reached 149 for 8. Kieron Pollard's unbeaten 41 off 25 was the innings that made it a total at all.
Chennai's chase was Watson's. Struggling early, bleeding at the knee, he made 80 off 59 with eight fours and four sixes and got Chennai within touching distance before he was run out in the last over of the innings. Two needed off the final ball. Lasith Malinga, expensive all night, bowled a slower delivery. Shardul Thakur was struck on the pad and given out lbw. Mumbai won by a run, their second one-run final in three years.
It was Mumbai's fourth title, which took them past Chennai as the most successful franchise in the league, and made Rohit Sharma the first captain to lift the trophy four times. Jasprit Bumrah, whose 2 for 14 at the death had been the difference before Malinga's last over, took the match award.
Why it stuck
Two matches that season were tied and settled in Super Overs, and one at the Chinnaswamy on 30 April was abandoned as a no result. Small details, mostly forgotten. What people in India remember from 2019 is the last ball, the argument about whether Malinga's front foot had crossed the line, and Dhoni sitting in the dugout after being run out by a direct hit.
Mumbai and Chennai had now met in three finals. This was the closest of them, and it fixed the rivalry as the one the league is actually built around.