May 17, 2015
Brief Scorecard: Mumbai Indians 114 for 1 (Patel 51*, Simmons 48) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 113 (Rahul 25, McClenaghan 3-16) by nine wickets
Parthiv Patel steered Mumbai's chase with an unbeaten 51, Sunrisers Hyderabad v Mumbai Indians, IPL 2015, Hyderabad, May 17, 2015 © BCCI
May 17, 2015
Brief Scorecard: Mumbai Indians 114 for 1 (Patel 51*, Simmons 48) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 113 (Rahul 25, McClenaghan 3-16) by nine wickets
Parthiv Patel steered Mumbai's chase with an unbeaten 51, Sunrisers Hyderabad v Mumbai Indians, IPL 2015, Hyderabad, May 17, 2015 © BCCI
HYDERABAD – Many years from now, if Mumbai Indians decide to institute a Hall of Fame, Lasith Malinga is sure to be among the front-runners for first entry. The iconic image to go alongside the award could be one of the several toe-crushing yorkers he's bowled over the years in the Pepsi Indian Premier League. One such delivery to Shikhar Dhawan played a small but significant role on Sunday (May 17) as Mumbai set up a home playoff in Qualifier 1 against Chennai Super Kings on Tuesday by virtue of finishing second in the league standings.
Mumbai’s surge to No. 2 on the points table capped a remarkable turnaround for a team that began the season with four consecutive losses.
Royal Challengers Bangalore, who earlier in the day benefited from their abandoned game against Delhi Daredevils to seal their playoff spot, finished third in the league table and will take on Rajasthan Royals, who ended up fourth, in the Eliminator in Pune on Wednesday.
While Malinga got his team off to a dream start, the destroyer on the night was Mitchell McClenaghan. A left-arm pacer who hits the deck hard, McClenaghan returned 3 for 16 in a fine four-over spell as Sunrisers Hyderabad crashed and burnt to 113 all out in 20 overs. Parthiv Patel (51 not out) and Lendl Simmons (48) took Mumbai to within eight runs of victory, before Rohit Sharma hit a big six as Mumbai romped home by nine wickets with 37 balls to spare.
Dhawan and David Warner, who had stacked up five fifty-plus stands and two century stands in the tournament so far, combined to make all of seven runs in a vital game as Hyderabad's back was broken right at the outset. Dhawan failed to jam his bat down in time to a Malinga special, while Warner top-edged an audacious front-foot pull off McClenaghan that lobbed towards Kieron Pollard running in from point.
Mitchell McClenaghan celebrates after dismissing David Warner, Sunrisers Hyderabad v Mumbai Indians, IPL 2015, Hyderabad, May 17, 2015
With the big scalps in their bag inside two overs, Mumbai went on all-out attack. The good work was then carried forward by young J Suchith, the left-arm spinner, whose ability to deceive the batsmen in the air rather than off the pitch made for engrossing viewing. His first burst of 3-0-14-2 prevented the middle order from doing the repair work.
Suchith first had Moises Henriques, the muscular Australian allrounder, stumped after he had laboured to 11 off 18 balls, before taking out Naman Ojha, who was sucked into a drive that wasn't on as Rohit took a dolly at cover.
The innings, already on a freefall, came apart completely after KL Rahul's dismissal for 25 as the lower order couldn't cover the gaping hole left by the top order. That they crossed the 100-run mark was due to some timely boundaries towards the end by Dale Steyn and Praveen Kumar.
Hyderabad had to go for broke and came out attacking, with Steyn bowling a series of delightful outswingers that missed Parthiv’s outside edge by a kitten's whisker. But Mumbai’s openers came through that testing phase to go about their job clinically.
With little by the way of pressure due to the asking rate, the focus was on playing orthodox cricket as Parthiv and Simmons switched back to the style of play that has helped them achieve varied degrees of success this season.
Parthiv, fluent in pockets, and Simmons, cutting, pulling and playing the touch strokes to good effect, cantered to 37 without loss in the Power Play overs. By then, the shoulders in the Hyderabad camp had dropped, the fields were well spread out and the batsmen enjoyed knocking the ball around and chipping away at the target without breaking sweat.
Such was the nature of Hyderabad's defeat that it was hard to find a silver lining. From Mumbai's point of view, if they needed an example of a cakewalk, this was it.
Courtesy: Wisden India
