Sidelights:
There was a ray of hope for sure for Mumbai Indians in this match. Not when at the toss, their captain Rohit Sharma, who was also a birthday boy, said that he is sure of a turnaround in this match. The ray of hope blinked when Kieron Pollard started to blast the SRH leggie, Amit Mishra for 5 sixes. One would have then thought that at last the Mumbai Indians have arrived, but that was not the case. SRH included Ojha and Irfan Pathan not only to give strength to their weak batting line up but to give some more strength to their bowling as well. MI needed 20 runs to win when Irfan Pathan was given the ball to bowl the last over. When Pollard can get 27 runs from Mishra’s over it was highly possible to get those runs from slowish bowling by Pathan, but on the very first ball Pollard got out and MI again tasted defeat. Their poor approach to the batting is the main reason for their current poor performance. Pollard will remain Pollard, but others will have to rethink on how to go about the things in India, where the second leg of this year’s IPL is about to start, so that they can win all their remaining matches to qualify for the playoffs.
IPL 7 | Match 20 | MI Vs SRH
Venue: Dubai International Cricket Stadium, Dubai
Toss: MI and elected to field first
Playing XIs:
SRH: Aaron Finch, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, David Warner, Darren Sammy, Naman Ojha, Irfan Pathan, Karan Sharma, Dale Steyn, Amit Mishra, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar
MI: Ben Dunk, Rohit Sharma, Corey Anderson, Ambaty Rayudu, Kieron Pollard, Aditya Tare, Harbhajan Singh, CM Gautam, Zaheer Khan, Pragyan Ojha, Lasith Malinga
Mini Score Card:
SRH 172/5 (20) Run rate: 8.60
David Warner 65 (51) | Zaheer Khan 2/26 (4)
KL Rahul 46 (40) | Corey Anderson 2/18 (1)
MI 157/7 (20) Run rate: 7.85
Kieron Pollard 78 (48) | Bhuvaneshwar Kumar 2/17 (4)
Ambaty Rayudu 35 (27) | Dale Steyn 2/20 (4)
Result: SRH won by 15 runs
Points: SRH 2 (Total 4) | MI 0 (Total 0)
Man of the match: Bhuvaneshwar Kumar (SRH)
Umpires: Kumar Dharmasena | Marais Erasmus | S Ravi (3rd) | K Srinivasan (Reserve)
Match Referee: Andy Pycroft
How they played the game:
Powerplay: SRH 44 runs, 2 wickets | MI
First 50 runs: SRH 44 balls | MI
50-100 runs: SRH 40 balls
100-150 runs: SRH 28 balls
Extras: MI 18 (5 LB, 12 Wd, 1 Nb) | SRH 9 (2 B, 1 LB, 6 Wd)
Best Partnership
SRH: 3rd wicket – 111 runs off 81 balls between Warner 65 (51) and Rahul 34 (30)
MI: 4th wicket – 77 runs off 57 balls between Pollard 47 (45) and Rayudu 28 (22)
Fours and SIXES:
SRH 11 Fours (3 each by Finch and Rahul, 2 by Ojha, 1 each by Dhawan, Warner and Sammy) | 5 SIXES (4 by Warner and 1 by Sammy)
MI 14 Fours (5 by Rayudu, 4 by Dunk, 3 by Pollard and 1 each by Tare and Gautam) | 6 SIXES by Pollard