Mumbai Indians clinch second win of IPL 8 after excellent display from Lasith Malinga and Mitchell McClenaghan.
Lasith Malinga and Mitchell McClenaghan have snared seven wickets to trump David Warner’s Sunrisers Hyderabad and help Ricky Ponting register his second win as Mumbai Indians’ coach. At the innings break, Mumbai seemed to have fallen short of setting Hyderabad a match-winning total but the slow pitch and the Malinga-McClenaghan bowling partnership ultimately proved too good for Warner and Shikhar Dhawan’s frenetic beginning. Lendl Simmons hit a half-century and Kieron Pollard provided some late-order fireworks to push Mumbai up to 8-157 in their 20 overs, before Hyderabad fell 20 runs shy in the chase.
Both teams made two changes to their playing Xis, as Mumbai brought in Jagadeesha Suchith and Vinay Kumar for Hardik Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah. Hyderabad finally decided to play both Dale Steyn and Trent Boult in the same side, dropping Moises Henriques in the process. To bolster their batting, they brought in Hanuma Vihari for Bipul Sharma. With temperatures soaring and the humidity touching 60 per cent, Rohit Sharma’s decision to bat first was a foregone conclusion. However, for the second game in running following Rajasthan’s collapse on Friday, it looked as though the team batting first could have done better had they read the pitch well. The hosts had the start they needed from Lendl Simmons and Parthiv Patel, with the openers involved in a 42-run stand that was broken only in the sixth over by Steyn, when Patel was sent back to the dugout with a middling score of 17.
An over later, Praveen Kumar got the better of Unmukt Chand who failed to read the slowness of the delivery and played his pull a tad too early to the mid-wicket fielder. Experts have often spoken of the need for Mumbai captain Rohit Sharma to bat at the top of the order, but for the sake of protecting his middle-order he retained his place at four. For the most part of his 15-ball stay Sharma looked like he has often done – crisp and classy. Just when Sharma and Simmons were looking comfortable the latter, who had completed his half-century, was bowled by Steyn. In the very next over Rohit was left rueing a miscued lofted drive off Karn Sharma. Defeated by the flight and the slight turn that the leg-spinner had on offer, Rohit was caught at long-off to leave Mumbai in a spot at 4-108 in the 14th. The Sunrisers bowlers did a good job at crucial times in the game, while a lack of application from the Mumbai batsmen was evident in the manner in which wickets were thrown away almost every time the opposition strung together a few dots. What also hurt the Mumbai Indians was losing wickets in pairs; one was always followed by a quick one afterwards and it prevented them from rocketing away when they should have.
Kieron Pollard remained, sadly, Mumbai’s lone ranger in the death overs. Boult and Bhuvneshwar’s choking channels combined with the wickets that Mumbai kept losing regularly throughout innings made a final assault a distant dream. Boult, back after being out for a couple of games, conceded just 12 from his last two overs, while Bhuvneshwar gave away 13 and scalped three wickets too. When Pollard came in to bat, Mumbai had seven wickets and a little over seven overs in hand. He made 33 off 24 but Mumbai scored just 57 off them to finish with fewer runs than they would have probably wanted. However, Malinga and McClenaghan ensured it would turn out to be more than enough. If it was Warner who gave Hyderabad an explosive start in their Kolkata match while Dhawan played second fiddle, the roles were reversed against Mumbai.
Dhawan was out of the blocks quickly, caressing a four off the first ball of the innings from Harbhajan Singh. He followed it up with a push through the covers off McClenaghan and then took off in Harbhajan’s second over in which he took 18 runs. Harbhajan has been Mumbai’s best bowler this season but he’s rarely bowled an over – let alone two – in the powerplay. The slow nature of the pitch demanded a spinner to take on the attack when the field restrictions were on but such was the nature of Dhawan’s batting, he looked like he was playing on another wicket. A reverse sweep went to the fence, then a cut through backward point yielded the same result and then as if to prove he could play all around the wicket, Dhawan whipped one through mid-wicket for the third four of the over. To complete the set, he went for a slog sweep against the turn and walloped it over square-leg for the first six of the innings.
At the other end, Warner was still looking to find his timing but together the pair seemed to have done enough to put Hyderabad on the pedestal. The Mumbai attack, which had been taken to smithereens all tournament, was already beginning to look weary, captain Rohit’s worry-lines increasing by the moment. At 0-45 from 4.5 overs, Hyderabad appeared to be running away with the game. Then, in the span of the next seven balls, Lasith Malinga and Mitchell McClenaghan had found Mumbai the opening they needed. Malinga coerced Warner into upper-cutting a bouncer to the third-man fielder. Dhawan got into his 40s next over with a nicely-controlled dab behind the wicket but pulled McClenaghan to Malinga at short mid-wicket to leave them 2-52 in six overs.
It has been repeatedly said that Hyderabad are over-dependent on the Dhawan-Warner pair and it seemed to have been proven right again. The Hyderabad innings followed the path of their counterparts once the openers had been separated. There was only one partnership of note after that, a fourth wicket stand of 36 runs, but it took its time coming. By the time KL Rahul became the fourth batsman out, mistiming it straight to long-off, Hyderabad needed a further 54 runs from 37 deliveries. That they ended up making just 33 out of those underlined how well Mumbai bowled at the back-end of the innings when the batting became progressively more difficult. Once the openers were dimissed, it was all down to how well Ravi Bopara went about the chase. He scored 23 and took 27 balls to get there before becoming McClenaghan’s third victim.
Malinga had shown signs of coming close to his best against Bangalore. Today he seemed to have completed that turnaround. Hyderabad were left with a lot to do off the last two overs, needing 31, but against the raging Malinga they would have probably not even scored 15. He sent back Vihari, then Praveen and Steyn off successive deliveries, but missed his hat-trick to end with a four-wicket haul.
Mumbai’s second win in the competition keeps their playoff hopes alive as they join Hyderabad on four points.
