Krunal Pandya Steals The Show As Mumbai Indians Trump Defending Champions SRH To Continue Winning Run
Apr 13, 2017 at 12:25 AM
Only Hardik Pandya? No.
At a stage when Mumbai Indians’ run-rate was stalled and stagnant with the home side needing more than seven runs per over, the elder Pandya i.e. Krunal Pandya came to the fore to tilt the game in favour of his team, not giving Sunrisers Hyderabad even a slender of a chance to win the game.
Krunal came in at a situation when his team needed 48 runs off 38 deliveries and when he left, they were only 10 runs away with 17 balls still in the bag. He played an innings 37 in just 20 deliveries not just to counter innings of 20 off 10 from Ben Cutting but also to steal the limelight from Nitish Rana who stood there at the crease watching the Krunal show from the other end.
Mumbai, though, had a good start to this target but big wickets of openers Jos Buttler and skipper Rohit Sharma meant that the middle order had to step up to the ranks to get the job done. Parthiv Patel and Nitish Rana shared 38 runs for the third wicket before the senior pro was dismissed. Again, Mumbai found themselves in a bit of trouble but Rana ensured that the team middle order does not crumble in the pressure situation.
The moment it looked like the team is in some pressure, Krunal Pandya just blew away faded hopes of Hyderabad to help team seal an emphatic win.
The main cause of the defeat of Hyderabad was the cautious start as the opening pair put up 26 runs on the board in the first five overs. Skipper David Warner and Shikhar Dhawan were taking no risks keeping in mind that they do not have that much depth in the batting line-up. The cautious approach was carried till the time Warner was dismissed when team’s scorecard showed a score of 81 on the board but on 61 deliveries.
Earlier, when Warner was dismissed, Hyderabad batsmen threw the bat at most of the deliveries in the quest to hit boundaries and increase run-rate but all the efforts were in vain, thanks to economical bowling from Mumbai Indians. None of the middle order batsmen could live up expectations as Deepak Hooda was dismissed on nine whereas Yuvraj Singh went back for five.
It was the cameo of 20 off 10 balls from Ben Cutting that was helpful for the team as he lifted the run-rate a bit with his aggressive batting. The wickets continued to tumble till the last before Hyderabad was stopped on 158 by an intelligent Mumbai Indians bowling line-up.
The target was ever going to be difficult for Mumbai. Yes, the win came a bit late which one could say but not was far away from the home side.
Brief Score: Mumbai Indians 159/6 (Nitish Rana 45, Parthiv Patel 39, Krunal Pandya 37; Bhuvneshwar Kumar 3-21) defeat Sunrisers Hyderabad 158/8 (David Warner 49, Shikhar Dhawan 48; Jasprit Bumrah 3-24) by four wickets at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.