The Mumbai Indians barged their way into the Pepsi IPL 2015 Playoffs after they defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad by nine wickets in Hyderabad yesterday. In the final league game of the season – a do-or-die contest for both teams – MI came out to bowl all charged up and demolished the home side bowling them out for a paltry 113, and then knocked off the runs in the 14th over.
On what appeared to be a beautiful batting surface, MI struck two deadly blows in the first two overs to deflate the hosts. Lasith Malinga dished out the inch-perfect yorker that sneaked under the bat of Shikhar Dhawan and uprooted his off stump. Mitchell McClenaghan, who opened the bowling at the other end, dished out a sharp bouncer first up which caught David Warner unawares, and forced the batsman to top edge a pull which was caught by Kieron Pollard running in front point.
From 7 for two, Moises Henriques and Eoin Morgan attempted to consolidate the innings and batted very conservatively over the next few overs; they added 16 runs over the next 4.1 overs, before the latter attempted an uppercut which carried to Lendl Simmons patrolling the thirdman fence.
With the backbone of the SRH batting broken in the first three overs, the home side was always on the backfoot. That MI did not drop their intensity one bit did not help their cause. Henriques and KL Rahul added 28 runs to take their team past the 50-run mark. However, in the tenth over, Henriques attempted to charge out of the ground and take on the left-arm spinner J Suchith, only to be beaten in flight, and be stumped. The very next ball, Naman Ojha spooned a catch to cover, and SRH had slipped further to 51 for 5.
KL Rahul worked his way to a run-a-ball 25 before he dragged a Harbhajan Singh delivery back onto his stumps. From 61 for 6, SRH were staring at the possibility of being shot out for less than 100. But contributions from Karn Sharma (15), Ashish Reddy (17) and Dale Steyn (19 from 11 balls) took the team past the 100-run mark. When Praveen Kumar was run out off the final delivery of the innings, SRH had been bowled out for 113 – their lowest total in the IPL. To put this innings in context, prior to this match, SRH had been bowled out only once in 44 IPL matches.
For MI, the damage was done upfront, and it was a matter of keeping the pressure through the rest of the innings. Malinga, apart from dismissing Dhawan, also picked up the wicket of Karn Sharma in the eighteenth over to return figures of 2-17 from his four overs. McClenaghan returned outstanding figures of three for sixteen from four overs which included 14 dot deliveries. Suchith (2-14), Harbhajan Singh and Kieron Pollard (1-14) were the other wicket-takers.
After their domination in the first half of the match, and needing less than a run-a-ball, the run-chase was always going to be a formality. Parthiv Patel and Lendl Simmons were clinical in the run-chase and took the team to the brink. The pair accumulated runs without taking too many risks; 50 of the innings came up in the eighth over, while the 100 came up in the twelfth over. Parthiv Patel brought up his half-century off 36 balls (with the aid of nine boundaries), batted through to the end and struck the winning runs off the leg-spinner Karn Sharma. Simmons made 48 from 44 balls before his cut shot found Dhawan at point in the fourteenth over.
With their nine-wicket win, MI had staged a fantastic comeback. Rohit Sharma’s team had lost their first four matches, but turned the tables in a spectacular manner – winning eight of their remaining ten matches (which included a five match winning streak) to bulldoze their way to second place in the table. (IPL website)
