The latest tie where Mumbai Indians played against Delhi Daredevils was an important battle for both the teams.
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Roy and skipper Gautam Gambhir conjured up a 50-run stand for the first wicket.
Out of 30 wins at Wankhede Stadium, MI have been successful 16 times while defending and 14 times while chasing. They come after six overs and bowl till 15th over.
MI lost one at home against Chennai Super Kings in the opener, then at the hands of Sunrisers Hyderabad at Hyderabad. MI’s bowlers were top notch against SRH and Delhi’s batsmen haven’t quite got going. But, the Mumbai Indians are often known to be slow-starters in the IPL. Rohit Sharma got his fielders closer. Similarly the Mumbai Indians too have not been able to produce a respectable score in their previous game, but the bowlers seem to have done fine with rookie leg-spinner Mayank Markande who has shown a lot of promise in the two games. Even so, suffering narrow defeats, Mumbai Indians might opt for Hardik Pandya which depends on his recovery for today’s match. Hardik Pandya, Mayank Markande leaked runs like water. It lost five wickets for 21 runs – collapsing from 166-2 to 187-7 – with Daniel Christian clean bowling Kishan and Kieron Pollard off successive deliveries.
Akila Dananjaya, who replaced out-of-form Ben Cutting, was also not spared by Roy. Akila gave away 47 despite bowling 6 dots. Support came initially from captain Gautam Gambhir, then Rishabh Pant. The duo together stitched 69 runs, taking DD to the 100-run mark in the next 5 overs. Krunal Pandya was the only player to be in the double digits. Other than those three balls, it had been a brilliant inning from Roy- he finishes with 91 off 53 balls. Suryakumar was the second batsman to depart falling to Tewatia. Evin Lewis and Surya put up a century stand, setting to propel MI past 200.
Both the openers, SA Yadav and E Lewis fired and scored 53 runs and 48 runs respectively giving Mumbai Indians the kind of start they were looking for. “We know he’s hard to pick, so if he just bowls that length and pace where he asks batsmen to make decisions, we know it’s going to be hard for them and he’s bamboozling very good players at the moment”.
Not a sub-par total, but it should have been much more, given the start MI had got.
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Australia’s Dan Christian claimed 2-35 and New Zealand’s Trent Boult 2-39 as Delhi restricted Mumbai to 194-7 from 20 overs. When Narine well for 9, he had consumed 10 balls and hit only one boundary. 17 of them were sixes.
