IPL 2017 | Rabada, Morris heroics in vain as Mumbai end Wankhede jinx

Brief Scores: Mumbai Indians 142/6 (Jos Buttler 28, Kieron Pollard 26; Amit Mishra 2/18, Pat Cummins 2/20) beat Delhi Daredevils 128/7 (Kagiso Rabada 44, Chris Morris 52*; Mitchell McClenaghan 3/24, Jasprit Bumrah 2/21) by 14 runs.

Mumbai, who had never won at the Wankhede batting first in any of their previous seven attempts were put into bat by Zaheer Khan after winning the toss. Delhi made three changes to their side, giving debut cap to South Africa fast bowler Kagiso Rabada and bringing in Corey Anderson and Aditya Tare back into the playing XI. Mumbai made just one change to the team that beat Kings XI Punjab, with Mitchell Johnson replacing an out of form Lasith Malinga.

Delhi pacers reveal from the beginning- Usual, usual

Making his IPL debut, Rabada lived up to the promise and sent Parthiv Patel packing with a back-of-length yorker. Sanju Samson put more pressure on Mumbai by running out Jos Buttler for 28, only in the space of just seven deliveries. With 48/2 in the powerplay, the onus was on skipper Rohit Sharma and in-form Nitish Rana to resurrect the innings, but Delhi skipper Zaheer Khan ensured the latter would not have a telling impact on this game. Zaheer’s ploy of moving Anderson to the deep square-leg from deep midwicket reaped instant success with Rana falling for a miserly score of 8. Sharma’s struggles against spin continued as he was dismissed by a googly, yet again, scoring just 5 off 9 deliveries. At the halfway point, Mumbai were reeling at 68/4.

‘Disciplined’ Delhi restrict Mumbai with a formidable total 

The continuous fall of wickets had put Mumbai on the backfoot and Kieron Pollard and Krunal Pandya tried to up the ante with a short association before Amit Mishra came up with another googly to dismiss the latter for 17. While Hardik picked up the thread first, hitting Chris Morris for a six over square-leg, the West Indian ensured that he stayed in the middle at the other end. But Cummins got the better of him for 26 that left Hardik to garner as many runs possible in last three overs. Over the last two overs, Mumbai could only muster 19 runs as the visitors restricted them to just 142 in their allotted overs. 

Mumbai hit back with venom

Having never won a match at the Wankhede batting first, compounded with their batting exploits, Mumbai found themselves under the cosh. But as they have done throughout the ten seasons of the IPL, they fought back right from the off as Aditya Tare was dismissed after a brilliant one-handed throw by Hardik Pandya in the first over. Samson, Anderson and Shreyas Iyer fell in quick succession as Delhi were reduced to 21/4 in 4 overs and the game appeared to be headed for an ominous end. Delhi’s hopes were pinned on Rishabh Pant and Karun Nair to rescue them from the mess they found themselves in, but Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya crashed that hopes of Delhi by sending the duo back to the hut for 0 and 5 respectively. With Delhi tottering at 24/6, Rabada and Morris tried to make a game out of it by playing with patience taking Delhi to 57/6 at the midway point of the innings.

Morris-Rabada effort goes in vain

While Rabada was taking on the Mumbai bowlers, his compatriot Morris played second fiddle to perfection before coming into his own. It was an arresting sight to watch two bowlers complementing each other with sublime audacity. That also put some pressure on Mumbai and Rohit decided to operate with spinners from both the ends. With the equation boiling down to 60 runs off 36 balls, the task was cut out for the South African duo, but the Mumbai pacers kept bowling at a nagging line to stem the run-scoring rate. In the penultimate over, Bumrah bowled Rabada with a perfect slower ball yorker and Pandya spent only 10 runs in the last over to give Mumbai a 14-run victory.