Mumbai Indians, who specializes in facing the pressure of big matches, defeated the Gujarat Titans by 20 runs in the IPL eliminator on Friday on the basis of the aggressive innings of Rohit Sharma and Johnny Bairstow to make it to the second qualifier. Now Mumbai will face Punjab Kings on Sunday, in which the winning team will play Royal Challengers Bangalore in the final in Ahmedabad on June 3.
Mumbai scored 228 runs for five wickets, batting first on the strength of Rohit (81 off 50 balls) and Bairstow (47 off 22 balls). In response, the Gujarat team could score 208 runs for six wickets despite Sai Sudarshan, who scored the highest run in this season of IPL and was ruled out of the tournament.
Gujarat did not allow the match to get out of its JD till the 16th over but Mumbai tightened the grip after Sudarshan’s wicket. Jasprit Bumrah bowled Washington Sundar (48 off 24 balls) at his familiar Yorker. After this, Sudarshan missed in an attempt to play a scoop shot off Richard Glison and his stump was uprooted.
Gujarat needed 36 runs in the last two overs and two Khabu batsmen Rahul Tewatia and Sherfan Rutherford were at the crease. 24 runs were needed in the last over and Glison, who made his debut through this match for Mumbai, gave three runs. Earlier, the fielding of Gunjrat was also very poor and dripped three important catches, two of which were from Rohit and one of Suryakumar Yadav (33 off 20 balls).
Rohit got two lives in the powerplay, which he took full advantage of. First Garald Koetzi left his catch in Deep and then Kusal Mendis, who made his debut for Gujarat, dripped the catch behind the wicket off Mohammad Siraj.
Bairstow (47 runs off 22 balls) gave Mumbai a great start to play aggressively in Powerplay. Outside the England team, this batsman has recently scored two consecutive half -centuries in county cricket for Yorkshire. He is associated with the Mumbai team from this match itself.
Rohit also started opening his hands when spinner Sai Kishore arrived in Powerplay. The former Mumbai captain hit two fours and a six and took the team to 79 runs in the sixth over without any loss, which is Mumbai’s best performance in Powerplay this session.
Most of the batsmen play after Afghanistan’s Dhurandhar spinner Rashid Khan, but Rohit did not spare him and hit a six on the slog sweep when he came into his rhythm.
Mumbai’s score was 113 runs for one wicket in ten overs. India’s T20 captain Suryakumar welcomed Koetzi with two sixes. Tilak Verma also scored 25 runs in 11 balls which included three sixes. Captain Hardik Pandya hit Koetzi with two sixes in the 20th over to reach Mumbai to 225.