Cameron Green’s sensational unbeaten 100 off 47 deliveries (eight fours, eight sixes) ensured that Mumbai Indians placed themselves in line for a berth in the play-off stage of the Tata Indian Premier League with an overwhelming and predictable eight-wicket victory over Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Wankhede Stadium on Sunday.
The win became predictable only because Akash Madhwal and Chris Jordan turned the script on its head in the final four overs of the Sunrisers Hyderabad innings. The duo engineered a fantastic comeback against the run of play with splendid bowling, conceding just 32 runs and claiming four wickets to stand between Hyderabad and the 225-run total that it could have got.
Chasing another home win to get to fourth place in the league before the last game was due to begin in Bengaluru, Green gave Mumbai the impetus they needed with his blazing strokeplay around the ground. His electric knock enabled Rohit Sharma to survive a scratchy spell in the middle and score a half-century.
On a track that played true throughout, Sunrisers did not have a paceman who could bowl the yorker-length deliveries with consistency. With their extra pace, Umran Malik and Kartik Tyagi, preferred ahead of Mayank Markande as the Impact Substitute, paid for errors in length and line as Mumbai Indians motored along to victory.
Mumbai claws back with good death-overs bowling
There were two significant differences between the teams. Mumbai’s top order played itself in and stayed till the job was complete. More importantly, they had the bowlers who pulled things back with some fantastic work at the tail-end of the Hyderabad innings. These factors combined to work in the home team’s favour.
That Mumbai Indians were chasing a total below 225 was entirely due to some sharp death-overs bowling. At the end of the 16th, Hyderabad were sailing at 168-1. But they then stumbled to 200-5, finding it hard to get boundaries against consistent yorker-length bowling, and without a left-hand bat to unsettle the bowlers.
Madhwal’s magic breathes life
It would be easy to criticise the Hyderabad bats for losing their way in the end, but that would be denying Madhwal and Jordan their due. Madhwal first prised out Mayank Agarwal with a well-angled short-pitched delivery from around the wicket, before getting Heinrich Klaasen and Harry Brook to york themselves.
On a night when Green’s maiden T20 century wowed the audience at the Wankhede Stadium and beyond, it would be heartless to overlook Madhwal’s magical spell. He finished with 4 for 37 in his four overs, showing how important it was to cramp the batters for room and not allow them to free their hands. And in doing that, he reminded fans of Jasprit Bumrah’s absence.
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Great opening for Sunrisers, but no follow-through
More importantly, Madhwal swung the momentum Mumbai’s way. It had looked like Sunrisers would run away with a total in the region of 225 when Vivrant Sharma, the left-hand bat from Jammu and Kashmir, and Mayank Agarwal blazed away to a 140-run opening partnership, only the second first-wicket partnership worth more than 50 runs for the team in a dismal season.
Vivrant helped Hyderabad as a wrist-spinner in the nets in earlier seasons before catching the eye with his big hits. He revelled in making a memorable half-century in his first appearance at the batting crease. He expressed himself freely, letting Agarwal take his time before opening up to unleash some delightful strokes.
With Agarwal the second wicket to fall in the 17th over, Hyderabad were throttled by Madhwal and Jordan. Klaasen, Hyderabad’s most successful bat this season, lost his rhythm after losing Agarwal’s company, and in the face of a concerted attack by the home bowlers.
Green signals intent
Mumbai’s chase did not gather momentum until Green arrived at the fall of Ishan Kishan’s wicket in the third over. He lost no time in caning the Sunrisers bowlers all over the ground. He slammed five sixes and four fours as he raced to a 20-ball half-century, and continued in similar vein until he reached his maiden 100 and closed out the game with two overs to spare.
The power that he generated when playing along the ground was such that the fielders did not get much time to cut the ball off before it sped to the boundary rope. And when he took the aerial route, the ball flew really long distances, giving the blue shirts in the galleries a bit more time to exercise their throats with loud cheering.
Rohit works his way to a half-century
Rohit ended his search for timing and touch, but would have been relieved that his slow strike-rate early on was more than compensated for by Green’s striking skills against pace and spin alike. After the time-out and a change of bats, the Mumbai Indians skipper finally found what he was looking for, making the most of a dropped catch by Sanvir Singh at mid-wicket when he was 12. A pulled four off Umran and a muscled six over square leg off Vivrant’s high full toss were the kind of shots that gave him confidence. A hat-trick of fours off Umran in the 10th over were all the proof that anyone would have needed to know that Rohit had found his touch.
As his luck would have it, he fell to a brilliant catch by Nitish Kumar Reddy at point off Mayank Dagar, but by then, he had already experienced the relief of reaching the minor milestone of 50 after a real long wait. That left the stage for Suryakumar Yadav to join Green on the drive to victory.