Rising Pune Supergiant was behind the eight-ball, almost the entire first-half. Still, the team built on the force it generated in the last couple of overs and ensured that it registered a hat-trick of victories against Mumbai Indians in the tenth edition of the Indian Premier League.
More importantly, the 20-run victory at the Wankhede Stadium helped Supergiant book a place in Sunday’s finale. Mumbai Indians will now head to Bangalore and hope to cash in on the second chance of making it to the final by winning the virtual semifinal on Friday.
Ever since the coin landed in captain Rohit Sharma’s favour, Mumbai Indians hardly put a foot wrong in the first 18 overs of the Supergiant innings. Despite Ajinkya Rahane scoring his second fifty of the season, against the same opponent, Mumbai Indians bowlers didn’t let the Pune batting line-up (sans Ben Stokes) run away with the game.
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In fact, Manoj Tiwary and M.S. Dhoni could hardly connect the big heaves until Rohit threw the ball to Mitchell McClenaghan for the 19th over. The first ball was a full-toss above Tiwary’s waist and he whipped it to the fine-leg to complete the slowest fifty of the season, off 45 balls. The free hit was cleanly despatched over long-on by Tiwary, and then a single got Dhoni on strike.
Typical Dhoni
Dhoni has consistently made a meat of bowlers in the penultimate over this season. He continued the trend with two sixes of the three legal deliveries he faced, on either sides of two wides outside off. While the first hit was despatched to the cow-corner, the last-ball heave landed over long-off to make it a 26-run over.
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Dhoni unleashed an onslaught against Jasprit Bumrah with two lusty blows and the over yielded 15 runs. The last two overs fetched Pune 41 runs, thus helping it put on a respectable 162 for eight.
Mumbai Indians required a quickfire start to shake off the damage it suffered at the end of the first innings. However, Lendl Simmons was run out backing up too far at the non-striker’s end. And Washington Sundar then shut the door on Mumbai Indians with three quick wickets.
The all-rounder was lucky with the big breakthrough of Rohit Sharma, who promoted himself to No. 3. Rohit’s cross-batted swipe took the bottom-edge of his blade before thudding into the pad but umpire C. Shamshuddin upheld the appeal.
Three balls hence, Washington was rewarded for bowling straight as Ambati Rayudu’s back-footed pull ended up in Smith’s palms at short mid-wicket. In the seamer’s next over, Pollard brought Smith into play again at the same position, this time with a front-foot flick. At 51 for four, the door was as good as closed for Mumbai, with Parthiv Patel holdling on to one end.
Thakur’s double strike in the 15th over that saw the back of half-centurion Parthiv and Krunal Pandya sealed the deal for Supergiant, which will travel to Hyderbad for the final while Mumbai Indians will have to board a flight to Bengauru.