Fancied Mumbai Indians stumble on Hyderabad plateau
Sunrisers Hyderabad’s bowlers once again put up a stellar show as they restricted a star-studded Mumbai Indians to 147 for 8 in an IPL encounter, played at the Rajiv Gandhi International stadium here on Thursday night. But barring many moments of impatience, Hyderaba managed to go across the finish line on the last ball of 20th over with their last pair in the ground. They scored 148/9 to seal the victory
Hyderabad at one stage gone down to 107/5 from 62/1, and they again made a mess of the chase after loosing two wickets in 19th over, but they somehow managed to win the match.
This was also second defeat in the row for the regaining champion Mumbai Indians who are labelled as late starters in IPL.
Chasing victory target of 148 runs, Shikhar Dhawan gave his team a very good start. Alongwith Wriddhiman Saha, he made a quickfire 62 runs partnership. But Mayank Markande, like he had done against CSK, again made the match an interesting affair by triggering a mini collapse of sorts. HIs spell of 4-0-23-4 will always be a stand out performance.
After Dhawan 45 and Saha 22, none other batsman was able to handle the pressure. Captain Kane Williamson 6, Manish Pandey 11, Shakib 12, Yousuf Pathan 14, Rashid Khan 0 got out cheaply. But Deepak Hooda kept his cool to guide his team across the finish line.
Earlier, the much-vaunted MI batting line-up flattered to deceive as the likes of Evin Lewis (29), Suryakumar Yadav (28) and Kieron Pollard (28) got out after getting set which put brakes on their scoring rate.
The lower middle-order caved in badly as Sunrisers looked as potent an attack even without their premier India bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar. Such was the dominance of the Hyderabad bowlers that the back 10 of the MI innings fetched them only 69 runs with only 36 coming off last five overs.
Sandeep Sharma (2/25 in 4 overs) proved to be a like-for like replacement with his incisive swing bowling while Siddarth Kaul (2/29 in 4 overs) was once again impressive.
A lot of credit will got to Rashid Khan, who stifled the scoring during the middle overs with brilliant figures of 1 for 13 in 4 overs. Rashid bowled flat and fast with a mix of googlies and flippers. He bowled as many as 18 dot balls.
Skipper Rohit Sharma (11) was out trying to whip a delivery from Billy Stanlake (2/42) that grew big on him and the catch was taken at square leg by Shakib Al Hasan.
Ishan Kishan (9)’s maverick approach didn’t pay dividends as he failed to make most of a dropped catch by Sandeep Sharma as Siddharth Kaul had him caught at third man.
The normally dangerous Evin Lewis (29, 17 balls) started off well but tried to hit Kaul across the line only to find the off-stump knocked back. The normally dependable Krunal Pandya closed his face to a Shakib Al Hasan (1/34 in 4 overs) delivery to offer a simple catch. Stanlake hurried Pollard into ballooning one to Shikhar Dhawan at sweeper cover. Sandeep then dismissed Suryakumar and Pradeep Sangwan off successive balls to ensure that MI don’t cross the 150-run mark.