A good day all-round for Mumbai Indians as they jump several places on the points table after their 49-run win over Kolkata Knight Riders, removing Rajasthan Royals from the top spot. Riding on Rohit Sharma’s 54-ball 80, MI ended at 195/5.
Take a bow, Hitman!
He tries to up the scoring rate but holes out in the deep. 80 off 54. What a knock, Ro!#MI – 177/4 (17.5)#OneFamily #MumbaiIndians #Dream11IPL #KKRvMI
— Mumbai Indians (@mipaltan) September 23, 2020
Having won nine of the previous 10 encounters, MI couldn’t have asked for a better opponent than KKR to overcome a disappointing opening loss to Chennai Super Kings.
Shivam Mavi, the young pacer who even bowled a wicket-maiden, was the pick of the KKR bowlers.
Suryakumar stroked Sandeep Warrier for four fours in the third over before Rohit embraced Pat Cummins — the most expensive player (Rs 15.5 crore) of the tournament — with twin sixes in the fifth.
That set the platform for a leather-hunt and even after Suryakumar’s needless run-out in the 11th over, Rohit continued to clear the boundary at will. With virtually all the big-hitters coming up with cameos, MI tallied a gigantic 195 for five.
Boult and James Pattinson not only struck in the Powerplay but never offered freebies, which made MI tighten the screws by using Kieron Pollard, making his 150th IPL appearance, effective with the ball. In fact, Pollard picked his first IPL wicket since 2015 when left-hander Nitish Rana was impressively caught in the deep by Hardik Pandya.
With run-rate mounting to almost 30 an over with five overs remaining, KKR had to bank on Andre Russell and Eoin Morgan to pull off a miracle. But Jasprit Bumrah, who was running in at full steam, saw the back of both men in the 16th to seal the deal for MI.
