Charged Mumbai Discharges Hyderabad

Posted by Rajnikant in IPL on 04 4th, 2010 | no responses

ambati_rayudu_50 Mumbai is in semis now and for Hyderabad it’s a difficult road ahead to secure their place in semis. Mumbai won their 7th match in this IPL season. Hyderabad managed to get to just 115 runs while chasing a target of 179 runs and felt short by 63 runs. Save for Punjab, the downbeat for Hyderabad is all other teams have lifted their game in last few matches to get a semifinal birth and Hyderabad is still struggling at half way through tournament. With this loss Mumbai continues to retain the top spot and Hyderabad’s is now at 7th place in point table.

Yet again the successful duo of Sachin and Dhawan opened an inning on their home turf. The pair put 53 runs on board. Dhavan was not looking good and contributed only 14 runs in their stand before he got stumped by Gilly. Sachin was on top of Deccan bowlers and hit 5 boundaries in his 35 runs, but leg spinner Sharma caught him in front of wickets in 7th overs.

In the very next over, Ojha striked again and sent Bravo back in dug out. At that point of time, Mumbai inning was in great trouble, they lost 3 crucial wickets in 3 consecutive overs. But the young pair of Tiwary and Rayudu came forward to rescue MI. These two put up a partnership of 65 runs. Tiwary was looking great and plunged ball 3 times over the rope in his knock of 44 runs. Rayudu was on back seat, when Tiwary changed his gears and accelerated the Mumbai inning.

After Tiwary got out Rayudu took over and along with Pollard gathered 53 runs in last 3 overs to set a target of 179 runs. Rayudu remained unbeaten on 55 runs hitting 2 sixes and 6 boundaries. Pollard got out on last ball of the inning scoring 21. Ojah was pick of the bowlers and he now shares purple cap with Murali with 12 wickets under his name.

Scoring 179 runs on this turf was not that easy, pitch was playing slow. But looking at Hyderabad batting, this target looked achievable. Gilly and Gibbs opened Hyderabad’s inning and again Harbhajan bowled the first over. But this time Gibbs welcomed Harbhajan by hitting 2 consecutive boundaries. Gilly survived an appeal for LBW in this over. Zaheer provided first break through in 4th over. Sachin caught Gibbs at extra cover when Gibbs tried to play a big shot. Laxman got run out on 4 in very next over.

Then Rohit Sharma joined Gilly and Deccans were in need of healthy partnership. But Zaheer coined Gilly’s stumps in very next over. After loosing Gilly it was difficult for Hyderabad to score runs freely. The Mumbai took control on match. Pollard with a brilliant catch on his own bowling showed Rohit Sharma the way to pavilion.

Hyderabad needed 111 runs from next 59 balls to win and already four of their top order batsmen were sitting in dugout. Symonds was the loan worrier left on battle field with a task of scoring 12 runs per over to win game for Hyderabad. McLaren bowled Symonds in 12th over of match and after this wicket it was nearly impossible for Hyderabad to win the game. The remaining wickets fell on regular interval and Hyderabad ended up scoring just 115 runs in 19th over.

Hyderabad failed to build a partnerships, 30 runs stand for first wicket was the highest in Hyderabad inning and was the main reason behind their defeat. The credit goes to Mumbai bowlers. Not a single bowler’s economy rate crossed a double digit mark. This shows the discipline which they followed in bowling and the support they got from their fielders. Rayudu was rightly selected as Man of the match.

Now Mumbai is looking almost their in semis with 14 points in table, they have made strong claim on this year’s championship by wining 7 matches in 8 games. I hope Mumbai has bowled their overs in time so that they don’t get penalized this time. Now fingers crossed for slow over rate.

CS PLAYERS POINT TABLE

Points for this Post: -