Hello and a warm welcome to yet another blog on the daily match reviews of this year’s IPL. I will cover the game played between the Mumbai Indians and Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Wankhede here. So let’s get started!
Hardik Pandya won the toss and opted to field first, having just two overseas players in the playing 11. SRH were off to their usual blazing start but Bumrah’s wicket of Abhishek turned the game as SRH let the game slip with Hardik and Chawla picking 6 wickets together. Some fireworks from skipper Cummins gave SRH a respectable total of 173. However, their bowlers gave the perfect start as MI were reduced to 3 wickets by the powerplay. Still, Surya and Tilak didn’t provide anything much to cheer for the SRH bowlers as SKY was high and notched up a scintillating ton, with Tilak giving him good company by playing a good 37 and fittingly both were there till the end to finish the game for MI, winning by 7 wickets and 16 balls spare.
In a SKY scoring game, SRH would be disappointed with their middle-order not providing stability for the batting after the openers departed and their no.3 seems to be a problem as Agarwal also got out cheaply, replacing a struggling Ammolpreet. MI have bowled superbly in their last three games and would be happy that their captain played a big part in today’s game as he picked up 3 wickets and was economical and along with Chawla, they staged a collapse of the powerful SRH middle-order. SRH would be happy with their new ball bowling as they exploited the conditions superbly and Naman Dhir’s 9-ball duck helped them to get a superb start. And speaking about this, I feel that MI could have given a chance to Brevis instead of Naman Dhir as they fielded just 2 overseas players in their 11 and had an opportunity to give Brevis a chance at no.3. Last game against KKR, Surya had an opportunity to give his team a much-needed victory single-handedly but got out for a full toss, but today SKY made sure he didn’t leave anything behind, as he masterfully put back the pressure on SRH and comfortably got his side home. Even though MI are out, this win will mean a lot, especially to the Wankhede crowd as they finally saw their new captain perform superbly and everyone would have a good night’s sleep. So overall SRH should have hit 180-190, but Hardik and Chawla destroyed the SRH middle-order and MI’s top-order faltered, but SKY ensured that his team would not throw another game and in the process, notched an impressive ton.
So that’s it for today. Tomorrow, the game is between DC and RR, which will be an exciting and high-scoring game maybe. So stay tuned for that!