Mumbai Indians 201 for 2 (Green 100*, Rohit 56) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 200 for 5 (Agarwal 83, Vivrant 69, Madhwal 4-37) by eight wickets
Mumbai Indians did what was asked of them quite emphatically, but will now face a nervous wait to see how the fixture between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Gujarat Titans pans out on Sunday evening.
Only just briefly in their defence, Sunrisers had it under control when Bhuvneshwar Kumar removed Ishan Kishan early with the first three overs going for just 24. The turning point came in the fifth over when Rohit Sharma was reprieved on 12 by Sanvir Singh. He made them pay along with Green.
The Mayank-Vivrant show
But long before the carnage that the majority of the strong 30,000 crowd anticipated, Agarwal and Vivrant overcame a slow start to set the game up. Vivrant ended the powerplay with two bludgeoning hits down the ground off Piyush Chawla to go from 10 off 16 to 27 off 24.
The slow start wasn’t due to lack of trying, though. It was possibly a case of nerves and some good shots finding the fielders. He soon brought up his half-century off just 36 deliveries.
Agarwal said ‘I’m in too’ as he galloped to his half-century by hitting Jason Behrendorff superbly inside-out over cover for six and scything the follow-up wide yorker behind point. His half-century was up off just 32 balls. Now, Sunrisers were beginning to get into overdrive.
Madhwal leaves a mark
Agarwal then galloped towards a century, racing from 62 off 36 to 83 off 45, courtesy of a sensational takedown of Kumar Kartikeya and Chawla off successive overs. But his dismissal to Madhwal off a knuckleball dug in to have him heaving across the line and nicking, brought Mumbai back.
Sunrisers went for 19 balls without a boundary in the death overs as Madhwal also removed Klaasen and Harry Brook off consecutive deliveries to finish with 4 for 37. The last four overs produced just 32 as Sunrisers eventually just past 200 after a last-ball six by Aiden Markram.
The Rohit-Green run torrent
After removing Kishan early, Sunrisers could have had a second when Rohit mistimes a heave to midwicket. Sanvir put down a straightforward chance to open the floodgates.
He soon brought up his half-century off just 20 balls, while Rohit went past 11,000 T20 runs as runs bled against spin with Sunrisers unable to have any grip over proceedings. A part of this was down to some poor bowling by the spinners, who were all over the pace on a surface where there was hardly any purchase as the ball slid on nicely.
Rohit had a second reprieve, again by Sanvir on 51, but fell soon after. But when Suryakumar Yadav coolly walked in and lofted his first ball inside-out for four, it seemed as if he was in a hurry.
Suryakumar and Green next took down an erratic Umran Malik for 20 off the 16th to bring down the equation from 41 off 30 to 21 off 24. From there on, it was a walk home with two overs to spare; the winning runs also delivering Green a maiden T20 hundred as Mumbai stayed alive for the time being.
Shashank Kishore is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
Source: ESPN Crickinfo