Agencies
MUMBAI, MAY 23
THE hosts Mumbai Indians (MI) beat Delhi Daredevils (DD) by 15 runs in the 51st match of IPL 7. and kept alive their hopes to seal a place in the playoffs.
Chasing 173, Delhi Daredevils’ skipper Kevin Pietersen made an aggressive start scoring majority of runs in the first 5 overs. Just when he and Vijay looked settled to prolong the partnership, Vijay’s dance down the track went wrong and Tare stumped him off Shreyas Gopal’s bowling in the 6th over. But Mumbai Indians struck a bigger blow in the 9th over when Harbhajan Singh dismissed Kevin Pietersen as KP’s switch-hit only ended him getting castled.
Dinesh Karthik, DD’s most expensive buy from the auction Dinesh Karthik got out attempting to play an untimely cute shot. Tiwary and Duminy came together to steady the sinking DD ship. First they bought their time and then married caution with aggression to bring back DD into the game.
The Kevin Pietersen-led side lost Manoj Tiwary in the 19th over bowled by Marchant de Lange. While DD were hopeful that Duminy magic help them to cross the line. But the target of 25 runs in the final over was little too much. And with Bumrah bowling an excellent final over, DD could only manage to score 9 off those 25 runs and were beaten by 15 runs.
Earlier, Mumbai Indians were put in to bat first by Kevin Pietersen. Mumbai Indians scored 173 runs. The match was delayed as Praveen Kumar got injured after the toss and before the match commenced. So, Mumbai Indians requested whether they could make a change. DD showed the generosity and allowed MI to replace Praveen Kumar (the original choice) with Pragyan Ojha (who was dropped earlier) in the playing XI.
But the delayed start had no impact on Mumbai Indians’ opening pair of Michael Hussey and Lendl Simmons as they targetted DD’s bowling from the start. Michael Hussey was the dominating partner between the two. Hussey did not spare any bowler crossing the boundary rope at will. The duo scored 65 in the powerplay. Finally, Imran Tahir in his expensive first over got out Simmons. Mumbai Indians brought up their hundred in the 10th over.
Hussey brought up his fifty in the same over. Rohit Sharma, at the other end made sure he did not waste the bright start provided by the openers and started to trouble the DD bowlers immediately. But Hussey-Rohit partnership came to an end when Hussey was run-out in the 12th over and when MI had put up 120 runs on the board.
MI’s inning was dealt with two big blows in the 15th over bowled bu Jaydev Unadkat when he dismissed Rohit Sharma and Kieron Pollard. First, Rohit departed trying to play a rather cute shot and then Pollard edged one straight to the wicketkeeper to allow DD make a comeback of sorts in this match.Mumbai Indians plummeted further as no one bothered to stay in the middle following Rohit’s dimissal. Imran Tahir struck thrice and MI gifted DD with some runouts. Eventually MI inning was wrapped up to 173 runs in 19.3 overs.
Mumbai Indians included Marchant de Lange in the team replacing him Krishmar Santokie in the team. DD brought in Shahbaz Nadeem and Siddarth Kaul and dropped Mayank Agarwal and Mohammad Shami from the team.
