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Suryakumar Yadav’s incredible unbroken 102 off 51 balls, combined with three wicket hauls from Hardik Pandya and Piyush Chawla, gave the Mumbai Indians (MI) their fourth season victory over Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) by seven wickets in Mumbai. MI moved up to ninth place in the table as a result of the victory.
For MI, it was a bizarre game of powerplay with the ball. While they didn’t bowl poorly, they didn’t have much luck. Travis Head opened the scoring in the opening over against Nuwan Thushara with an inside-edged four, and he added another in the second over against Anshul Kamboj, who was making his debut. The following should have been Kamboj’s first IPL wicket in the next over when he had Head’s off stump splat on the ground, but he had over-stepped.
Abhishek Sharma was dismissed by Jasprit Bumrah after he was found behind for 11 off 16, but SRH was still able to score 56 for 1 on the powerplay. MI would have been annoyed that despite drawing 18 incorrect shots in the opening six overs, they managed to claim just one wicket.
When Mayank Agarwal was dismissed by a bail-trimmer, Kamboj finally had some good fortune on his side. The Chawla and Hardik show was on it. After ten overs, SRH were comfortably positioned at 88 for 2, but Chawla turned the tide by picking up Head for a 30-ball 48. After a slog sweep that was straight to deep backward square leg, Nitish Reddy was removed by Hardik, who used a short ball that was spooned straight up.
Shahbaz Ahmed and Jansen held out for a little while, but Hardik had them back in the 16th over as SRH was at 125 for 7 and soon after that at 136 for 8, with Chawla snaring Abdul Samad. Thanks to Cummins’ undefeated 17-ball 35, SRH was able to even surpass the 170-run threshold.
Going into this game, chasing 174 did not seem like a difficult task, especially at a place where totals above 180 had been hit in six of the ten innings this season. However, the SRH bowlers made life very difficult for the batsmen. There was plenty of seam and swing available, and the bowlers at first even had trouble controlling the swing. In the first three overs, they bowled eighteen extras, but once they found their lengths, batting started to feel arduous.
The length of the Test match was what caused the SRH to quickly take wickets. Ishan Kishan was only able to edge Jansen’s seaming delivery to first slip in the opening exchange. And how can Pat Cummins stay out of the picture when we’re talking about Test-match length?With a massive top edge, Cummins bowled a wicket-maiden in the opening over that left Rohit Sharma out of the game. Naman Dhir was subsequently caught by Bhuvneshwar Kumar for a nine-ball duck, flashing to first slip.
With MI all over the place, not a single run was scored off the bat between overs 1.3 and 4.4.
Suryakumar declared that enough was enough after nine runs were scored in three overs. He started by facing Cummins and then saved special attention for Jansen. The aggregate total for overs six and seven was 38 runs, and he went 4, 4, 6 in the seventh over before smashing Jansen over fine leg for a flat six. Suryakumar quickly went from 4 off 7 to 32 off 14, negating any initial momentum that SRH had. Suryakumar hit four fours and two sixes in his 32 runs off nine balls against Jansen, and he reached his fifty off thirty balls.
When Suryakumar was seen hobbling for a while, there were worried looks in the MI dugout, as well as among those who were likely interested in India’s chances in the T20 World Cup next month. However, the big hits continued. Following a long-on mowing of a slower ball by Bhuvneshwar, Shahbaz Ahmed was swept twice in two balls. Then, in the 17th over, Suryakumar quickly went from 82 to 96 in three balls, scoring 4, 4, 6. Then, needing six to win and four for his century, he withdrew and finished the job by going inside out over T Natarajan’s covers.