IPL 2017 | Mumbai bowlers condemn Hyderabad to their first loss of the season

Brief scores: Sunrisers Hyderabad 158/8 (David Warner 49, Shikhar Dhawan 48; Jasprit Bumrah 3/24, Harbhajan Singh 2/23) lost to Mumbai Indians 159/6 (Nitish Rana 45, Parthiv Patel 39; Bhuvneshwar Kumar 3/21, Deepak Hooda 1/18) by 4 wickets.

Rohit Sharma showed confidence in the team that beat Kolkata Knight Riders at the Wankhede in the previous match and retained the exact same playing XI. Sunrisers Hyderabad, however, made a couple of changes bringing in youngster Mustafizur Rahman and Vijay Shankar to replace Moises Henriques (fallen sick) and Bipul Sharma. Mumbai won the toss and unsurprisingly elected to bowl first keeping the dew factor in mind.

Hyderabad recover after a slow start

Harbhajan Singh and Lasith Malinga started off well as they choked the Hyderabad batsmen by conceding a mere 13 runs in the first three overs. Warner tried to up the pace by hitting Malinga for two boundaries in one over but the defending Champions could only muster 34 runs in their power play overs. Dhawan took his sweet time getting settled, scoring just seven runs in 15 balls, but once he adjusted to the pace of the wicket, it was Mitchell McClenaghan who bore the brunt of Dhawan’s strokeplay conceding 15 in the over. Warner joined the party as well, smashing McClenaghan and then Hardik Pandya for 23 runs to reach the midway point of the innings with a score of 75 without the loss of any wicket.

The Turbanator puts Mumbai in the driving seat

With the full set of wickets in hand, Warner decided to target Harbhajan hitting the offie for a six over third man with a switch hit. The turbanator, however, got his revenge on the very next ball as Warner tried to replicate his shot but could only manage a top edge that was brilliantly caught by Parthiv Patel. Harbhajan’s doosra got the better of Hooda in the 14th over and in the next one, Dhawan (48) was denied his first half-century of the tournament when he was undone by a dipping full toss by McClenaghan. Ben Cutting smashed Malinga for two consecutive boundaries in the 17th over to take Hyderabad to 140. With three overs to go, it appeared like Hyderabad would be able to post a competitive total on the board, but Bumrah and Malinga conceded just 18 runs while picking up 4 wickets to restrict the visitors to just 158 in their allotted 20 overs.

Mumbai impose dominance over the game

Parthiv Patel and Jos Buttler, as they have done in the IPL so far, got Mumbai off to a good start scoring at a rapid pace taking the home side’s total to 28 in three overs. Ashish Nehra, who had been smashed for 15 runs in his first over, fought back and dismissed Buttler to give Hyderabad their first breakthrough. Rashid Khan, who lost his purple cap yesterday to Imran Tahir, reclaimed his spot as the best bowler by sending Rohit Sharma packing. But Parthiv Patel kept the scoreboard ticking and welcomed Mustafizur Rahman back to the IPL with three consecutive boundaries. 

Nitish Rana emerges as Mumbai’s saviour again

Even though the home side lost Patel, 39 (24), Rana brought up the midway point of the innings with a huge six over mid-wicket to take Mumbai to 85. Needing just 74 off the last 10 overs, Warner was forced to bring his strike bowlers, Ashish Nehra, Mustafizur Rahman, and Rashid Khan back into the attack, but wickets proved tough to come by with Mumbai scoring a boundary an over. Rana, who had rescued Mumbai from a difficult position against KKR, was the architect of the chase yet again as he paced his innings perfectly to ensure Mumbai was always ahead of the required run-rate. Even though Kieron Pollard was dismissed cheaply, Krunal Pandya proved to be a more than able replacement as he took the shine off Rashid Khan’s figures smashing the Afghan for a six off his second last delivery. From there on it was one way traffic as the two left handers, in particular Krunal Pandya, ensured that Mumbai easily chased down the SRH target with 8 balls to spare. Unfortunately for Warner, his two best bowlers from last season, Nehra (1/46 of 4 overs) and Mustafizur (0/34 of 2.4 overs), had a very poor outing killing any hopes SRH had of defending a sub-par score.