YUVI LIFTS DAREDEVILS
Rain halted Mumbai Indians at 40/ 4 as they set off in chase of Delhi Daredevils’ 152 in their Indian Premier League match at the Wankhede Stadium here on Tuesday. Reduced to 8/ 2 the hosts were 25/ 2 in four overs when rain first stopped the proceedings.
Both teams need to win to stay in contention for the playoffs and the hosts were well below the par score as per Duckworth Lewis when the game was stopped a second time.
Mumbai were short of the par score after five overs so they went for their shots, losing Parthiv Patel ( 13) immediately after the delay. Harbhajan Singh ( 5) also perished as rain returned much to the dismay of Rohit Sharma who couldn’t hide his frustration. Mumbai were 40/ 4 after 5.2 overs, well behind the par score of 56 at that stage.
Earlier, Yuvraj Singh scored his highest individual score of 57 in this edition of the IPL to power Delhi to 152/ 6, taking his tournament tally to 203 in 10 games.
The Punjab left- hander started cautiously and initially struggled to get his timing right. He battled to 24 in 29 balls before unleashing his classy big hitting at the end. Yuvraj hit Lasith Malinga ( 2/ 33) for three boundaries in the 17th over and followed it with two wristy sixes over fine leg off Mitchell McClenaghan ( 0/ 37) to give much needed impetus to the visitors’ innings. The last five overs yielded 57 runs.
It required a stunner from Lendl Simmons at covers to send back Yuvraj in the penultimate over after a 62minute stay hitting seven boundaries and two sixes. Skipper J. P. Duminy 28 ( 19b, 3x4, 2x6) chipped in with a cameo at the top. Harbhajan Singh ( 2/ 11) bowled brilliantly to keep visitors under check in the mid overs.
For a change Malinga started the proceedings after Daredevils decided to bat first. The Lankan slinger struck first ball by inducing an outside edge off Mayank Agarwal. Duminy got away with a pull shot off Malinga but the visitors made a quiet start reaching 7/ 1 in the first couple of overs.
Duminy broke the shackles with a last ball six off Vinay Kumar in the third over and Shreyas Iyer 19 ( 18b, 3x4) joined the party with three boundaries of McClenaghan. In the same over Iyer survived a miscued shot with ball ballooning to covers but Suchith and Pandya messed it up.
The onslaught continued and the visitors were going great guns at 43/ 1 after five overs but Harbhajan struck with his first ball to dismiss Iyer. The local boy played a slog shot and managed a leading edge straight to Vinay Kumar at short third man.
Duminy chipped straight back to Suchith in the next over and he accepted gleefully. Daredevils were suddenly looking down the barrel at 50/ 3 in 6.4 overs before Kedar Jadhav ( 16) and Yuvraj tried to steady the ship with 28run partnership. Yuvraj got into the groove with two boundaries of Malinga in the ninth over. Jadhav also hit a huge six off Suchith but became the second victim of Harbhajan’s guile.