This match between Gujarat Lions and Mumbai Indians had eyes of other teams too as the fate of this match would decide the fate of others. If Gujarat Lions win this match, they qualify and Mumbai Indians are almost out of the race to make it to the playoffs. That would make it easier for DD, KKR and RCB as winning their last match is all they would need to do to qualify. But if MI win, all the 6 teams apart from RPS and KXIP would be in a race to be among the Top 4.
Suresh Raina won the toss and chose to field immediately. Raina and Co had done well against KKR while chasing and wanted to continue the same. Rohit Sharma departed early with a quick 30 off 17 and soon followed Guptill. N Rana played a blinder off an inning by scoring 70 off just 36 deliveries. Probably a gem found by MI but a little late. His stint helped MI pose a target of 173 for the Lions to chase down to qualify comfortably.
Lions approached this chase in a different manner, Dwayne Smith was sent to the middle order whereas Finch was asked to open, but this didn’t help as Finch too, departed for a duck. McCullum and Raina put together a match winning 96 run stand. Raina played a captain’s inning as he scored 58 off 36 deliveries. and ensured a win with 13 balls to spare. Looks like baby luck seems to be working for Raina.
Here’s a look at some of the important numbers and stats from this match –
2nd duck in IPL 2016 – Aaron Finch became a 3rd player after Shreyas Iyer and Ajinkya Rahane to have 2 duck in this IPL season.
First to 100 wickets – Vinay Kumar becomes first Indian Fast bowler to pick up 100 or more wickets in IPL history.
Powerplay Success – Gujarat Lions are the only team to score over 70 runs in the powerplays. This team has not just done it once but on 4 occasions.
First two teams to qualify – Gujarat Lions and SUnrisers Hyderabad become first two teams to qualify for the playoffs as GL beat MI.
Chances of MI qualifying – If SRH beat KKR by a huge margin and RCB beat DD by a huge then MI can qualify for the playoffs.
