The Mumbai Indians (MI) achieved a hat trick of wins after beating Rajasthan Royals (RR) with 57 runs at Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday.
MI v RR IPL 2020 Match 20 Highlights
MI picked a bat and made their intentions immediately clear when Rohit Sharma and Quinton de Kock each hit a four in Ankit Rajpoot’s first over anchor.
While Shreya’s Gopal scored a narrow second goal, Rohit took aim at Rajpoot in the third run and hit a six and a four before de Kock scored one for four.
In the next round, de Kock prevailed over Jofra Archer to hit a four and a six, but the left-hander got out in the fifth round when debutant Kartik Tyagi picked his first IPL wicket. MI finished the power play with 57 runs on the board and lost a wicket.
Rohit and Suryakumar Yadav hit a six and a four in game eight before adding three more fours to his account in year nine as MI 90 approached.
RR, although fighting back on the 10th, when Shreyas Gopal scalped two wickets on successive deliveries. First he caught MI skipper Rohit in the depths and then Ishan Kishan on the first ball that failed a slog.
MI was hovering over a hundred in the 12th when Suryakumar Yadav hit a couple of crisp foursomes. However, a few overs later they lost their fourth wicket when Jofra Archer, who was again involved in the attack, released Krunal Pandya.
Suryakumar Yadav delivered his first fifty 2020 IPL on the 16th when MI passed the 130-run mark.
It took MI some quick runs to place a large sum on the board and Suryakumar Yadav and Hardik made sure their team got what it was looking for when MI scored 60 from the last four overs.
While the 17th passed nine runs bowled by Archer, Suryakumar Yadav and Hardik met four each. RR then had a chance to get Hardik in 18th, but Tom Curran dropped a hook on his own bowling when MI scored in the same over 19, with Surya hitting a four and a six and Hardik hitting a four.
Jofra threw the dramatic 19th over. While Hardik managed to duck under Jofra’s projector and not get hit on the head, Surya was pinged on the head with Jofra’s bouncer. While being examined for a concussion, Surya played a bold ball on the next ball to hit a six as MI drew closer to 180 at the end of the penultimate round.
Rajpoot took a six and a four in the final game when MI scored 17 points and landed 193/4 on the board. Surya remained undefeated with his best IPL result to date of 79.
MI had 193 runs to defend and their pacemakers hit the ground. Trent Boult struck in the first game when Jaiswal dropped to zero.
Jasprit Bumrah then scalped Steve Smith’s large wicket while de Kock captured an excellent catch behind the wickets.
Boult then had Sanju Samson’s wicket over in the third game after the RR batsman misadjusted his move and Rohit caught a light catch in the middle.
RR lost their fourth wicket shortly after the strategic break when Anukul Roy made an excellent catch to get Mahipal Lomror out. The substitute skater ran
backwards from the additional cover position and jumped forward to complete the catch.
While the gates were falling at the other end, Jos Buttler kept RR hopes alive. The wicketkeeper batsman, who took his 10th IPL fifty and 1500 IPL runs, changed gear dramatically.
He hit 24 out of 24 deliveries, but Buttler added 26 in the next 10 balls he faced to get over fifty in the 11th. On the next two overs, Buttler hit two sixes and
one four as RR drew closer to 100 at the end of 13 overs.
Buttler had advanced from 43 balls to 70 and carried out the attack on MI. But a Kieron Pollard special near the boundary rope ended the Buttler Show. Pollard, who occupied the long-on area, jumped up and reached out his right hand to catch the ball. As the ball popped out of his hand, Pollard held his nerve and balance to complete the catch.
The West Indian then took a wicket when RR Curran lost in the 15th before Bumrah scalped two wickets in the 16th, sacking Rahul Tewatia and Shreyas Gopal.
Bumrah chose his fourth wicket of the game to end Archer’s 24-run cameo with 11 balls. James Pattinson then finished the RR innings and sacked Rajpoot as MI recorded their fourth win of the season and moved to the top of the points table.
