On the ninth day of IPL 2021, Mumbai Indians met Sunrisers Hyderabad at the pitch for a face-off to score a chance to move up the ladder on the points table here at M Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai.
Coming off a nail-biting finish against Kolkata, Mumbai seemed to be well prepared for the match although they still needed to refine some rusty batting and bowling performance. On the other hand, Sunrisers Hyderabad looked for a chance to open a win after losing the first two matches where things didn’t go the way they wanted.
Mumbai won the toss and chose to bat first.
Things went well in Mumbai’s favor initially as they were able to build up a solid opener batting partnership between Quinton de Kock and Rohit Sharma, just when things started getting interesting Hyderbad bowler Vijay Shankar decided to crash the party for Mumbai, as he went on to dismiss Rohit Sharma and Surya Kumar Yadav landing a huge blow to their batting order, Mujeeb Ur Rahman also contributed to the crash with de Kock’s wicket and Mumbai found themselves in trouble.
Kieron Pollard arrived at the crease during a moment that seemed to have taken Mumbai deep down into well of troubles, Pollard, who is well known for his quick and explosive batting style warmed up to the occasion and carried out his duties well, he smashed the season’s longest sixer to Mujeeb Ur Rahman’s ball and played a quick inning with 35 runs off of 22 balls including three huge sixers.
Pollard’s experience-backed batting with his explosive hitting ability provided Mumbai a revival for sure and posted a total score of 150 for 20 overs.
Chasing a total of 151, Sunrisers got to the pitch with their usual opening order with David Warner alongside Jonny Bairstow, the duo played well during the powerplay, Bairstow especially went straight into hitting with some amazing back-to-back boundaries and 4 sixers to trouble Mumbai bowlers. David Warner on the other hand also punished Mumbai’s bowler with two boundaries and two sixers, the duo was in for a shock as Krunal Pandya soon dismissed Jonny with a hit wicket.
Manish Pandey joined Warner at the pitch but struggled to make any change in his poor batting performance and went back to the Pavillion for just two runs. Then it was David Warner who was dismissed by Hardik Pandya’s amazing throw to the wickets, from then on Sunrisers struggled to get a grip on the score but still managed to keep themselves in the fight with the help of Vijay Shankar who tried his best till the last ball to get the win for his team but was ultimately sent back to the pavilion with Bumrah’s delivery. Trent Boult shocked everyone with a climax three-wicket haul to make things worse for SRH. Mumbai won the match by 13 runs.
Rohit and de Kock’s opening partnership, Pollard’s quick cameo, Chahar’s bowling magic, Hardik Pandya’s amazing fielding, with Trent Boult’s three-wicket haul helped Mumbai Indians win the weekend dhamaka game against Sunrisers Hyderabad.
With this win, Mumbai Indians have now reached the top of the IPL 2021 points table.
