Kolkata: After getting off to a terrific start this IPL by winning their first two games, defending champions Sunrisers Hyderabad finally faced defeat by four wickets, at the hands of a spirited Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Tuesday evening.
Rohit Sharma, the Mumbai skipper won the toss and put Hyderabad to bat first. Sunrisers openers David Warner and Shikhar Dhawan put on 81 runs for the first wicket but the other batsmen failed to contribute. With the score at 105-2 at 13.1 overs, they looked all set to go for a big total but poor batting by Hyderabad coupled with some excellent death bowling, led by Jasprit Bumrah, made them end up with only 158 runs on the board.
In reply, Mumbai Indians got off to quick start and although they lost the early wickets of Jos Buttler and skipper Rohit Sharma, they always looked to be in control of the match. Opener Parthiv Patel along with newfound talent Nitish Rana built a steady partnership and took the team closer to victory and although, few wickets were lost at the end, they comfortably reached the target with 1.2 overs to spare.
For the Hyderabad bowlers, Afghani recruit Rashid Khan and Indian veteran left-arm pacer Ashish Nehra got the early breakthroughs. Bhuvneshwar Kumar was the pick of the bowlers as he scalped three wickets giving only 21 runs in his quota of four overs.
Poor umpiring again made it’s presence felt as David Warner, who had hit a four on the last ball of the fifth over retained the strike to face the first ball of the sixth over. This is against the laws and the umpires overlooked it. This comes after the poor umpiring in Mumbai’s last match against Kolkata where Rohit Sharma was adjudged lbw of Sunil Narine despite having a thick inside edge. Luckily, Mumbai went on to win that thriller.
With this win, Mumbai Indians climb to the third position in the table but Sunrisers Hyderabad remained on the second spot despite the loss courtesy of a better run rate.
Brief scores:
Sunrisers Hyderabad 158/8 (David Warner 49, Shikhar Dhawan 48; Jasprit Bumrah 3/24, Harbhajan Singh 2/23) lost to Mumbai Indians 159/6 (Nitish Rana 45, Parthiv Patel 39; Bhuvneshwar Kumar 3/21) by four wickets.