INDIANS BASK IN SUN
An all-round dominance helps Mumbai beat Hyderabad by 13 runs
Mumbai Indians proved too strong for Sunrisers Hyderabad as the two-time defending champion won by 13 runs in the IPL here on Saturday. The Mumbai team recorded its second win in three matches, while Sunrisers is yet to open its account after losing all its three games. Required to chase 151, Sunrisers was bowled out for 137.
It was a familiar tale of Sunrisers batting crumbling under pressure as had been witnessed in its two previous matches at the same venue. On Saturday, Sunrisers made a good fist of it with Jonny Bairstow, promoted to
Singh and Abhishek Sharma to finish with an analysis of 4-0-19-3.
A bigger calamity struck the Hyderabad team in the 12th over when its skipper, Warner, was run out for 36 (34b, 2x4, 2x6) with the score on 90. The Mumbai bowlers then made further inroads to take the chase out of Sunrisers reach. Vijay Shankar’s entertaining cameo of 28 (25b, 2x6) went in vain.
Earlier, Vijay Shankar and Mujeeb Ur Rahman shone with the ball as Sunrisers produced a disciplined bowling performance
Brief scores: Mumbai Indians 150/5 in 20 overs (Q de Kock 40, K Pollard 35*, Vijay Shankar 2/19) bt Sunrisers Hyderabad 137 in 19.4 overs (J Bairstow 43, R Chahar 3/19, T Boult 3/28) to restrict Mumbai to 150 for 5. The opening duo of Rohit Sharma (32 off 25) and Quinton de Kock (40 off 39) scored 53 in the powerplay after opting to bat, but Vijay Shankar (2/19) and Afghanistan spin duo of Mujeeb (2/29) and Rashid Khan (0/22) brought Sunrisers back in the game.
Kieron Pollard managed to lift MI to 150 with the help of a 22-ball 35 which included two sixes off the last two balls of the innings. Meanwhile, Rohit completed 4000 T20 runs as a skipper and also surpassed Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s record of hitting the most number of sixes by an Indian in the tournament. The 33-year-old now has 217 sixes in IPL, one ahead of Dhoni.