Bumrah, Rana guide MI to easy win
India bowler scalps three to help defeat SRH by four wickets
Mumbai Indians produced an impressive performance to continue their domination of Sunrisers Hyderabad, making it three wins out of three at the Wankhede Stadium. It was the first defeat in the current campaign for the defending champions.
Restricted to 158/8, David Warner would have still fancied his team’s chances 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 in his first two overs.
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.
Rashid built on his success in the first two games by getting the better of Rohit Sharma. Rana followed his scores of 34 and 50 with another impressive innings.
Earlier, the Mumbai Indians bowlers did well to restrict Sunrisers to a total of 158 for eight despite an opening stand of 81 between 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 4-023-2 and 4-0-24-3.
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). They got just seven, six and five runs in the last three overs.
They were able to target only Mitchell Mccleneghan, who went for over 10 runs an over. Warner and Shikhar fell when well set. The skipper was out on 49 and his partner on 48.