Mumbai Indians had a sigh of relief after registering their fourth win of the season, defeating Sunrisers Hyderabad by 7 wickets at the Wankhede Stadium on Monday.
A little too late for the five-time champions as they are at the ninth position on the table and playoff qualification is now a distant dream. But as skipper Hardik Pandya said at the toss the team needed to play for their pride and their fans, this win would have surely made the supporters happy.
Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), who had a great start to the season, are slowly starting to falter so close to the playoffs mark. They lost two consecutive matches (against RCB and CSK), won the game against Rajasthan by the barest of margin, and now lost again to the bottom-ranked team. As of now, SRH are positioned fourth with 12 points with a lot to be done to qualify for the knockouts.
Suryakumar Yadav was the difference between both sides on the field on Monday night. The flamboyant 360-degree batter finished the match off with a six, notching up his second century this season off just 51 balls.
Mumbai started the chase of 174 with a good pace but soon lost their first wicket when Ishan Kishan edged the ball towards the first slip in the second over. SRH captain Pat Cummins came into the attack and wasted no time in taking his first scalp, dismissing Rohit Sharma in the 4th over as wicket-keeper Heinrich Klassen took a brilliant catch running backwards.
Cummins’ first four deliveries to Suryakumar Yadav felt like a proper Test cricket battle with all the play-and-miss action taking place. SRH was successful in building the pressure in that over, aiding Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the next to dismiss Naman Dhir for a duck.
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Soon after the powerplay, SKY decided to take on Marco Jansen and shift the momentum in the home team’s favour. He smashed 22 runs in Jansen’s second over which included two fours and two sixes.
SKY completed his half-century in 30 balls with a four to Jansen in the 13th over. Suryakumar also became the 2nd batter after Rohit Sharma to record 25 scores of 50+ for Mumbai Indians in the IPL.
Once Suryakumar got going, there was no looking back. He scored his second IPL hundred and led Mumbai Indians to their fourth win of the season with the help of Tilak Varma on the other end. The duo built a match-winning partnership of 143 off 79 balls.
Earlier, Mumbai Indians had a good start after winning the toss and choosing to field first. The expectations were high from SRH’s dynamic opening pair of Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma to give them an explosive start yet again. But the home team managed to keep them to the score of 32 in the first four overs.
Debutant Anshul Kamboj took his first IPL wicket in the form of Travis Head but as luck would have it, it turned out to be a no-ball. All the celebrations turned to disappointment and Head added salt to the wounds by hitting a four on the very next ball which was a free hit.
MI’s most lethal weapon, Jasprit Bumrah gave the team the first breakthrough by dismissing Abhishek in the last over of the powerplay. The southpaw tried cutting the short delivery but the ball found an edge and Ishan Kishan took a brilliant flying catch behind the wickets.
Travis Head got a third life and again on the same bowler Anshul as he was dropped on 44 by Nuwan Thusara at deep third man. After coming too close to his first IPL wicket twice, Anshul finally got his first scalp in the same over as he castled Mayank Agarwal.
Hyderabad had a very quite first half, especially from their standards. They could only manage 88 runs in the first 10 overs of their innings with two wickets. Head’s luck finally ended as he was dismissed by leg-spinner Piyush Chawla in the 11th over. The SRH opener tried slogging one over the mid-wicket boundary but ended up handing an easy catch to Tilak Varma on the boundary.
Skipper Pandya came back for his third over and dismissed in-form Nitish Reddy in the very next over.
Piyush came back and took another wicket of SRH, castling the explosive South African Heinrich Klassen with a googly. Pandya gave two breakthroughs to MI in his final over. Shabaz and Marco Jansen were his victims.
Youngster Abdul Samad also didn’t make much of a difference to the scorecard as he was dismissed Piyush at a score of 3.
With only 136 runs on the board at the 17-over mark and already 8 wickets down, SRH had to bring in their impact player. All-rounder Sanvir Singh replaced opener Abhishek Sharma. SRH ended their innings with a little cameo from skipper Pat Cummins (35*) which helped the team to reach a total of 173/8 in their 20 overs.
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