DAZZLING DHAWAN
Shikhar Dhawan celebrated his comeback to the Indian team with a match-winning knock for Sunrisers Hyderabad on Monday. Inspired by an elegant half century from the opener, the defending champions beat Mumbai Indians by seven wickets to keep their playoff chances alive in the Indian Premier League.
Dhawan, who was recalled to the Indian team for the Champions Trophy on Monday, hit a majestic, unbeaten 62 to help Hyderabad chase down 139.
Dhawan (62 not out, 46 balls, 4 fours, 2 sixes) was dropped from the Indian team after the second ODI against England in January. After having got the selectors nod for the Champions Trophy, he was at ease for his IPL team on Monday. And despite losing captain David Warner early, he kept his composure and his 91-run partnership for the second wicket with Moises Henriques (44) put Hyderabad in the driver’s seat.
Earlier, Hyderabad put up a disciplined bowling effort to restrict Mumbai Indians to 138/7 in 20 overs.
Winning the toss and electing to bat, Mumbai initially struggled on a slower pitch and needed Rohit Sharma’s sublime 67 off 45 deliveries to get to 138/7 in a crucial match for Hyderabad. Mumbai’s secondhighest scorer was Parthiv Patel with 23.
The classy strokemaker that he is, Rohit was the only batsman who could take on Siddharth Kaul (3/24), Bhuvneshwar Kumar (2/29), Mohammad Nabi (1/13) and Rashid Khan (1/22).
Hyderabad captain David Warner exploited the slowish nature of the wicket, as he introduced Afghan off-spinner Nabi in the second over and the latter gave no rooms for the Mumbai batsmen to go for shots.
Nabi struck in his fourth delivery, running through the defence of Lendl Simmons (1). Nabi’s effective bowling resulted in another wicket as a desperate Nitish Rana (9) pulled medium pacer Siddharth Kaul to Bhuvneshwar Kumar at mid-off as Mumbai were reduced to 22/2 in 4.1 overs.
The next delivery could have got the third Mumbai wicket but Parthiv was dropped by Vijay Shankar at point off Siddharth Kaul.
However, the left-handed batsman couldn’t make the most of it as 12 balls later he fell to Kaul.
Then, captain Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya (15) shared a 60-run stand for the fourth wicket to bail the team out of the trouble.
Rohit started slowly with ones and twos but soon got into his groove. He hit leg-spinner Rashid Khan over long-on to launch his attack. He also targeted medium pacer Moises Enrique in the 14th over and collected three fours in the Australian’s over.
In the next over, Pandya lost his wicket, top-edging Rashid to Enriques at cover in the second ball, as Hyderabad lost their fourth wicket for 96.
Rohit then completed his fifty and threatened the hosts with a four and a six against Mohammed Siraj and Bhuvneshwar respectively. His innings ended when he played a Kaul delivery onto his stumps in the 19th over.
This IPL edition’s leading wickettaker, Bhuvneshwar, then did the job for Hyderabad by removing Kieran Pollard (5) and Karn Sharma (5) as Mumbai were restricted to 138/7.