Kolkata: Rising Pune Supergiant produced a dominant show against the defending champions after they outplayed the Sunrisers Hyderabad by six wickets at the Maharashtra Cricket Association stadium in Pune on Friday. In the other game, Mumbai Indians put on a spirited show to clinch a thrilling victory over the Delhi Daredevils at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
Home team skipper won the toss and opted to field against the Sunrisers Hyderabad. Warner (43) and Shikhar Dhawan (30) put on a 55 run stand and some late hitting by Moises Henriques (55*) and Deepak Hooda (19*) saw them post 176 runs on the board.
In response, Pune lost the early wicket of Ajinkya Rahane but a responsible innings by youngster Rahul Tripathi (59) and a powerful 63* by the hard-hitting Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who finished the match with a rocket of a hit for a four, sealed the deal for Pune, who climbed up to the fourth position in the table while notching up their second consecutive win and their third in this tournament. Sunrisers Hyderabad, despite a loss are at the third position in the league table.
And if the first game was thrilling, the second game was no less. Mumbai Indians literally ran through the Delhi Daredevils batting to register their sixth consecutive win in this tournament.
Batting first, Mumbai didn’t have a good beginning as they lost keeper Parthiv Patel (8) with only 36 runs on the board. And from then onwards, wickets tumbled quite regularly as the Delhi bowlers did not let the Mumbai batsmen gain any sort of momentum.
However, innings of some substance by Jos Buttler (28), Kieron Pollard (26), Hardik Pandya (24) and his brother Krunal Pandya (17) took the Mumbai total to 142/8.
And the Delhi batsmen made a mess of what seemed like a cakewalk of a chase after they lost wickets in heaps in the beginning of their innings courtesy some fiery bowling by Mitchell McClenaghan and Jasprit Bumrah and some electric fielding.
However, IPL debutant Kagiso Rabada (44) and Chris Morris (52*) rescued them from a sorry looking 24/6. But in the end, they fell short of the Mumbai total by just 14 runs as Mumbai Indians cemented their stay at the top of the table. Zaheer Khan’s Delhi Daredevils however are at the fifth position with just 4 points from five games.
Brief scores:
Sunrisers Hyderabad 176/3 (Moises Henriques 55*, David Warner 43, Shikhar Dhawan 30; Daniel Christian 1/20, Imran Tahir 1/23) lost to Rising Pune Supergiant 179/4 (Mahendra Singh Dhoni 61*, Rahul Tripathi 59; Rashid Khan 1/17) by six wickets.
Mumbai Indians 142/8 (Jos Buttler 28, Kieron Pollard 26; Amit Mishra 2/18) beat Delhi Daredevils 128/7 (Chris Morris 52*, Kagiso Rabada 44; Mitchell McClenaghan 3/24) by 14 runs.