After the Tilak-Wadhera show, Sandeep takes over
The Mumbai Indians left-handers revive the innings with a 99-run partnership while the Royals seamer, back in the team after being sidelined by injury, nishes with a ve-wicket haul
ajasthan Royals’ Sandeep Sharma returned from injury in grand style, picking up a ve-wicket haul and restricting Mumbai Indians to 179 in its IPL encounter at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium here on Monday.
Returning to the XI for the rst time in almost a month, Sandeep showed no signs of rustiness as he nished with gures of 4-018-5, his best in T20s.
Mumbai Indians got o to another torrid PowerPlay start, similar to its xture against Royals at the Wankhede earlier in the season. Rohit Sharma was the rst to fall, mistiming an attempted lofted shot, handing Trent Boult his 26th rst over wicket in the IPL — the most by a bowler.
Sandeep, who opened from the other end, quickly accounted for Ishan Kishan and Suryakumar Yadav. Suryakumar was caught unawares by a smart eld change from Samson who positioned Rovman Powell at long-on; the batter’s §ick found the elder with unerring accuracy.
RMI sent in Mohammad Nabi at No. 5 in an effort to counter-attack and the Afghan all-rounder took 18 o an Avesh Khan over, the last one of the PowerPlay. Nabi’s stay was shortlived as the 39-yearold became Yuzvendra Chahal’s 200th IPL victim, giving the leggie a simple return catch.
The onus was on Mumbai’s two young southpaws, Tilak Varma and Nehal Wadhera, to power the team to a challenging total. The latter, playing his rst match of the season, was the more attacking of the two, getting o the mark with a sweep past ne-leg o R. Ashwin. The duo rotated the strike regularly and sent the occasional bad balls to the boundary; they brought up their fty partnership o 34 balls.
The pair went after Avesh, who leaked 19 in his second over, and turned their attention to Chahal, who was hammered for 20 runs in the 16th over. Tilak also completed his 38-ball half-century in the process.
Wadhera fell to Boult, one shy of his fty, and the partnership ended a run short of 100.
After Avesh kept things tight in the penultimate over of the innings, Sandeep returned to snare three wickets in the nal over, denying Mumbai Indians a nal kick.
Royals were 110/1 in 11 overs with Jaiswal (62), Samson (10) batting. Buttler was out for 35.