There are two stadiums in India, where you would not like to lose a toss and then defend a target, especially in IPL or T20 matches. The Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai and Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, where you would never want to hold a target even if your team possess a bowling line-up like Sunrisers Hyderabad.
The defending champion’s reputation of being a graveyard for teams defending a low score came to the fore as Mumbai Indians beat visitors SRH by four wickets and eight balls left in the 10 match of IPL 2017, that ended the five unbeaten run (including three in last season) of SRH.
The home side were chasing a modest score of 159 and the credit goes to senior player Harbhajan Singh, who got rid of Hyderabad skipper David Warner and Deepak Hooba. Harbhajan was well aided by the death bowling skills Jasprit Bumrah and Lasith Malinga.
Openers Warner scored 49 off 34 balls and Shikhar Dhwan 48 off 43 balls, both added 81 for the opening wicket, but the latter’s lack of urgency in the power-play robbed Hyderabad of early momentum.
Dhawan, Hooda and Yuvraj Singh departed back to pavilion in quick succession and had it not been for Ben Cutting, who scored 20 off 10 balls, SRH would have struggled to get past 150.
Mediocre targets can get tricky sometimes if the chasing team display lack of intent. Parthiv Patel did not show any of those traits as he scored 39 off 24 balls with smart dabs to third man for fours and elegant clips to the mid-wicket fence.
However, he threw away his wicket to part-timer Deepak Hooda, as he chipped needlessly to Bhuvaneshwar Kumar at long-on.
As Mumbai skipper Rohit Sharma again struggled to perform (4 off 4), Nitish Rana played an entertaining innings by scoring 45 off 36 balls. And Kunal Pandya scored 37 off 20 balls.
Sanju Samson gives Delhi its biggest win ever
AMandeep
