MI script yet another thrilling victory in IPL
Mumbai Indians produced an impressive all-round performance to continue their domination of Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Wankhede Stadium, making it three wins out of three at the venue with a four-wicket win on Wednesday.
It was the first defeat of the current campaign for the defending champions. Restricted to 158 for eight, David Warner would have still fancied his team’s chances to defend it given the bowling attack at his disposal. But to make a fight of it, they needed all their top bowlers to be at their best. Their spin sensation Rashid Khan again started brightly but Sunrisers hopes suffered when their main strike bowler Mustafizur Rahman went for 30 runs in his first two overs. It proved to be a good toss to win for Mumbai Indians as the ball became difficult to grip due to heavy dew in the second innings. When Kieron Pollard fell at the total of 111, the equation was 48 off 38 balls with six wickets in hand. However, the left-handed pair of Nitish Rana and Krunal Pandya made it a cakewalk. Krunal smashed a 20-ball 37 and Rana scored 45 off 36 balls as the hosts coasted home with eight balls to spare.
YOUNG GUNS SHINE
As to why the IPL is said to be a good platform for young talents is being seen again this season in the way Mumbai Indians’ 23-year-old batsman Rana and Sunrisers Hyderabad’s 20-yearold Rashid Khan are taking the opportunity to make their mark.
On Wednesday, Rashid build on his success sin the first two games by getting the better of Rohit Sharma, one of the most successful batsman in IPL’s history, and Rana followed his scores of 34 and 50 with another impressive innings. Rashid had been unheard of outside of Afghanistan till last week but after outfoxing Rohit with a googly, even the rockstars of Indian cricket team would have sat up and taken notice.
BOWLING SHOW
Earlier, the Mumbai Indians bowlers did well to restrict Sunrisers to a total of 158 for eight despite an opening stand of 81 between David Warner and Shikhar Dhawan.
All the main bowlers of the home team put up a disciplined effort with Harbhajan Singh and Jasprit Bumrah leading the way with figures of 4-0-23-2 and 4-023-3.
Sunrisers’ problem was no one could really cut loose. They started and finished sluggishly. After the six overs of powerplay, the visitors were 34 for no loss (Run rate of 5.66).