The batsmen, led by Shikhar Dhawan, did their jobs with the willow, posting a sizeable score, before the Sunrisers Hyderabad bowlers ran through the Mumbai Indians batsmen like a knife through butter to ease to an 85-run victory in Visakhapatnam on Sunday. The massive win propelled SRH all the way to first in the points table.
It was a perfect evening in Vizag for the Sunrisers, despite losing the toss, with David Warner (47, 33b, 7x4, 1x6) getting things started for his team, before Dhawan (82 n.o., 57b, 10x4, 1x6) and Yuvraj Singh (39, 23b, 2x4, 1x6) went smash-bang in style to help the away side to 177/3 in 20 overs.
The Mumbai Indians were at least expected to make a fist of the chase, but wickets off consecutive balls to dismiss the openers, particularly Rohit Sharma, meant it was Ashish Nehra and co. who dominated with the ball as SRH bowled their opponents out for 92 in just 16.3 overs.
MI's chase was nightmarish to say the least, as Bhuvneshwar Kumar trapped Parthiv Patel in front of the wicket, with the only doubt being the height, before, Rohit Sharma played on off Nehra, who was excellent with the brand new white cherry.
Wickets kept tumbling and tumbling and tumbling from there, as Ambati Rayudu got a snorter from Nehra (3-0-15-3), before, a couple of balls later, Jos Buttler edged one through to Naman Ojha behind the wickets. Krunal Pandya then fell to Barinder Sran with Kieron Pollard, after a couple of boundaries, and briefly opening up the possibility of a grand counter-attack, holed out in the deep off Moises Henriques.
All this was done without Mustafizur Rahman (3-0-16-3) even coming in to bowl, and when the left-armer got a lucky caught behind decision to dismiss Hardik Pandya in the tenth over, the Mumbai Indians were on 50/7. Time Southee then came and went, caught behind for Mustafizur's second wicket, with MI eventually bowled out for a score barely worth mentioning.
Earlier, it was the Warner show to begin with, with the left-hander scoring at a brisk rate to take SRH to 76/0 in 9 overs. A couple of consecutive fours followed in the next over, but another attempt at a big shot led to Warner's wicket, with Harbhajan Singh (4-0-29-2) then pulling things back brilliantly by also dismissing Kane Williamson.
SRH were in danger of losing their way, like they so often do when Warner goes, at that point, but Dhawan, with confidence back in that blade after a few strong knocks, and Yuvraj Singh, back in the IPL party, made sure it would not be the path the team in orange would take.
Dhawan and Yuvraj put on a quite brilliant 85-run partnership in 8.1 overs to drive SRH to a big total, which proved to be well beyond MI's reach.
