It was a new home ground today for the Sunrisers, Vishakhapatnam instead of Hyderabad. But the venue did not change the course of the proceedings for the Sunrisers. They came into this match as the favorites, given their current form, and walked off looking absolutely unbeatable. Mumbai on the other hand was expected to gain some winning momentum from this match but ended up with one of their worst drubbings in all of IPL.
As the trend has gone so far in this IPL, Mumbai won the toss and chose to field.
Little did they knew how the decision was going to haunt them. It was a good batting wicket in the first innings with the ball bouncing truly and coming on to the bat nicely. Batsmen like David Warner and Shikhar Dhawan do not need a second invitation on such batting beauties. They have been in good form lately and capitalized fully on it scoring all around the ground without any fuss. Mumbai bowlers looked ordinary and an early introduction of spin in the form of Harbhajan did not work either. He was dispatched for a six and a four by Warner in his first over. The opening pair again produced a brilliant partnership of 85 inside of 10 overs before Warner departed for 48 off 33 balls, trying to hit Harbhajan for another six, being caught at long off. Mumbai got new man Kane Williamson early again off the bowling of Harbhajan. They would have thought that the proceedings would slow down a bit but the arrival of comeback man Yuvraj Singh infused fresh energy into Sunrisers innings.
It was vintage Yuvraj at display hitting a couple of sixes to fast bowlers through his favorite mid wicket region.
Dhawan accelerated as well on time for the home team, picking up the tempo. Yuvraj scored 39 off 23 balls before being dismissed hit wicket while Dhawan scored an unbeaten 82 off just 57 balls to take Sunrisers Hyderabad score to 177 for 3 in their 20 overs.
Mumbai was counting on skipper and opener Rohit Sharma to come good in order to have a shot at the target of 178 runs. One thing that Mumbai had not accounted at toss was the behavior of the pitch in cooler conditions. The ground is situated near the sea and in evening a cool breeze travels across the ground helping the ball swing.
The Sunrisers bowlers took full advantage of the conditions and rocked Mumbai from the 1st over itself. Mumbai lost 5 wickets in the first 5 overs for just 30 runs.
The match was all but over for Mumbai. The lower order tried to bat as long as possible to minimize the margin of defeat but Hyderabad bowlers kept on picking wickets to bundle Mumbai Indians for a paltry 92 runs in the 17th over, winning by a huge margin of 85 runs. Nehra and Mustafizur were the pick of the bowlers picking up 3 wickets each for 15 and 16 runs respectively. Such was the state of Mumbai batting that 8 out of the 11 players did not even reach double figures. Harbhajan was the top scorer for Mumbai with an unbeaten 22.
Sunrisers continue to dominate their opponents. With this win they are now the top ranked team ahead of Gujarat Lions on net run rate. With both, their batting and bowling in prime form, they would like to carry the momentum as far as they can. Mumbai again leave too much for them to do. Every year they reach a stage where they are in a must win situation with some games to go. With the team they possess, it is hard to digest but they need to sort out their issues before they play their next game.