IPL Match 9: Five turning points of Mumbai Indians vs Gujarat Lions
Apr 17, 2016 at 2:44 PM
Gujarat Lions continued their impressive run in the tournament by winning their third match defeating Mumbai Indians by 3 wickets in a thrilling match at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai few moments ago. It was a brilliant performance by Lions bowlers to restrict Mumbai to 143. Aaron Finch played a match-winning knock to help the Lions to win the match in the last ball.
- Mumbai Indians top-order batsmen failure
Gujarat Lions won the toss and choose to field. Mumbai Indians got off to a worse start losing the wicket of Rohit Sharma for 7. After that, Hardik Pandya did not contribute too much with the bat. Buttler also failed with bat scoring just 16 runs. Mumbai Indians also lost the wicket of Pollard. Mumbai Indians lost 4 wickets which put the Mumbai Indians under pressure to score a big total which would challenge the Gujarat Lions batsmen.
2. Gujarat Lions bowlers making an impact
After winning the toss, the Gujarat Lions made a great start to the match. Dhawal Kulkarni played his first match of the tournament and picked 2 crucial wickets of Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya which put pressure on Mumbai Indians batsmen. Pravin Tambe who was playing his first match came and made an impact by picking the wickets of Buttler and Pollard. Praveen Kumar who did not pick any wicket bowled brilliantly giving away only 18 runs in 3 overs. Faulkner and Bravo went for runs in the death overs but in the middle overs, they bowled well and restricted the Mumbai Indians batting line-up and also picked important wickets.
3. Brilliant hitting in the death overs
Mumbai India was struggling at 99 for 7 in the 17th over. Tim Southee and Krunal Pandya played excellent shots. In the 19th over both of them hit 17 runs which helped Mumbai Indians to get past the total to 129. In the last over Tim Southee hit a six and four. Krunal Pandya who made his debut played a crucial knock scoring 20. Tim Southee scored a quick fire 25 off 11 balls. At the end of 20 overs, Mumbai Indians scored a respectable total of 143. In the last 5 overs, Mumbai Indians scored 61 runs which helped them to reach a total which they can defend.
4. Aaron Finch match-winning knock
Chasing a target of 144, Lions started off to a poor start losing the wicket of McCullum. After that Raina and Finch put up 53 runs for the second wicket. Gujarat Lions lost wickets at regular intervals which put pressure on Aaron Finch. Aaron Finch was unable to run because of cramps. He completed his half-century off 46 balls. When things were getting tight for Lions team Aaron Finch stayed calm and hit the winning runs for Gujarat Lions. He remained not out on 67.
5. Mitchell McCleghan excellent bowling spell keeping Mumbai Indians in hunt
Mitchell McCleghan bowled a brilliant spell for Mumbai Indians. When the partnership between Raina and Finch was going on , the fast bowler came and picked the wicket of Raina. Nath who played some wonderful strokes was dismissed by Mitchell. In the 19th over when the situation was tight, he picked two crucial wickets of Faulkner and Kumar which kept the Mumbai Indians team in the hunt. He finished with figures of 4 for 21 in allotted four overs. Mumbai Indians was not able to defend 11 runs in the final and lost the match in the end.