Chahar, Boult steer MI to 13-run win over SRH
Chennai, Apr 17: Sunrisers Hyderabad's middle-order continued to misfire as spinner Rahul Chahar and pacer Trent Boult fashioned Mumbai Indians to a 13-run win in their IPL match here on Saturday.
Defending 150, leg-spinner Chahar (3/19) stifled the middle-order before Boult (3/28) polished off the tail as SRH were bowled out for 137 in 19.4 overs.
Opting to bat, MI had a good start but Vijay Shankar and Mujeeb Ur Rahman claimed two wickets each as SRH stemmed the flow of runs in the middle overs.
However, Kieron Pollard managed to lift MI to 150 for 5 with the help of a 22-ball 35 which included two sixes of the last two balls of their innings.
Chasing 151 for a win, Jonny Bairstow smashed a 22-ball 35 to give SRH a rollicking start, while David Warner too managed a 36 off 34 but once the duo were back in the hut, the middle-order again failed to come to the fore.
Back at the top with his opening partner Warner, Bairstow amassed 18 runs from Trent Boult in the third over with the help of three fours and a six.
Adam Milne was then treated with equal disdain, sending him for two maximums and a four as he bled 19 runs.
Krunal Pandya was then handed the ball but the result was the same as he conceded 13 runs with Bairstow and Warner smashing a six and a four respectively as SRH amassed 55 in 5 overs.
Bumrah then bowled a tight over but Warner sent Milne for a six as SRH reached 57 for no loss in powerplay.
Lady luck smiled on MI finally when Bairstow hit wicket while looking for a slog sweep off Krunal.
Chahar then removed Manish Pandey (2), while Hardik's direct throw found Warner short as SRH slumped to 91 for 3.
Chahar handed SRH a twin blow in his last over, dismissing Virat Singh (11) and Abhishek Sharma (2) -- both playing their first games of the season.
Vijay (28 off 25) cracked two sixes off Krunal to keep SRH in the hunt but he kept losing his partners as Abdul Samad (7) was sent packing by Hardik with another direct throw and then Boult produced a perfect yorker to rid get of Rashid (0).
Vijay too perished in the next over as SRH fell short once again.
Earlier, Rohit Sharma (32 off 25) and Quinton de Kock (40 off 39) scored 53 in the powerplay after opting to bat but Vijay (2/19) and Afghanistan spin duo of Mujeeb (2/29) and Rashid Khan (0/22) brought the Sunrisers back in the game.
Rohit completed 4000 T20 runs as a skipper and also surpassed Mahendra Singh Dhoni's record of hitting the most number of sixes by an Indian in the tournament.
The 33-year-old now has 217 sixes in IPL, one ahead of Dhoni. He occupies the third place in the overall list after Punjab Kings' Chris Gayle (351) and Royal Challengers Bangalore's AB de Villiers (237).
With Rohit and de Kock looking in full flow, it seemed MI will put up a big score.
However, MI soon slipped to 71 for 2 with Vijay Shankar dismissing Rohit and Suryakumar Yadav (10) in his two overs.
While the MI skipper holed out to Virat Singh in the sixth over, Suryakumar was caught and bowled in the 9th over.
Rashid Khan and Mujeeb then tightened the screw on MI as the well-set de Kock next perished at deep mid-wicket.
With MI at 107 for 3 in 16 overs, Pollard clubbed one over mid-wicket but Mujeeb soon dismissed Ishan Kishan (12 off 21) with wicketkeeper Bairstow taking a fabulous catch.
New man Hardik Pandya and Pollard couldn't produce their trademark hitting as the former holed out to Virat in the deep.
Pollard, who was dropped by Vijay in 19th over, ended things on a high, smashing the last two balls of Bhuvneshwar Kumar for two sixes.
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Fiery Siraj helps GT restrict SRH to 152/8
Hyderabad, Apr 6 (PTI): Mohammed Siraj bowled with fire in his belly to return excellent figures of 4/17 as Gujarat Titans restricted Sunrisers Hyderabad to 152 for eight in their Indian Premier League match here on Sunday.
Siraj dismissed struggling openers Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma cheaply before coming back to add two more wickets to his tally on a slow surface.
Left-arm spinner R Sai Kishore (2/24) and seamer Prasidh Krishna (2/25) too performed admirably but a wayward Ishant Sharma leaked 53 runs in his four overs to allow SRH cross 150 after they were 135 for eight at the start of the final over.
Head (8) had a fortuitous start as his edge off Siraj went past the stumps for a boundary. However, Siraj had the last laugh as the pacer got rid of the danger man from Australia when the opener flicked one for Sai Sudharsan to complete a smart diving catch at mid-wicket.
The crowd at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium found their voice after a few boundaries.
Siraj, however, had other ideas as the pumped-up seamer sent back Abhishek after the batter took the aerial route but failed to get the timing right and was caught at mid-on.
This meant the SRH openers' struggles continued in this edition of the IPL as the side reached 45 for two at the end of the power play.
Even as the visitors dominated proceedings at that stage, they faced some anxious moments when Glenn Phillips got injured. After being attended to by the physio, Phillips hobbled off the field.
Ishan Kishan (17) perished when he miscued a pull off a Prasidh Krishna short ball to deep square leg where Ishant completed the catch.
The duo of Nitish Kumar Reddy (31 off 34 balls) and Heinrich Klaasen (27 off 19 balls) tried to revive SRH innings with a fifty-run stand for the fourth wicket, a phase where GT got a few fours and a six by the South African big-hitter against Rashid Khan.
But just when SRH looked like laying the foundation for a respectable score, left-arm spinner Sai Kishore picked up the prized wicket of Klaasen whose leg stump was disturbed as he rocked back to employ the pull shot.
Reddy too perished while trying to smash Sai Kishore out of the park, leaving SRH at 105 for five in the beginning of the 16th over.
