CHRIS DHAMBARAGE
COLOMBO – Suryakumar Yadav struck his maiden Indian Premier League (IPL) century as Mumbai Indians (MI) registered a convincing 27-run victory over Gujarat Titans (GT) in the 57th match of the tournament played at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Friday.
The 32-year-old dashing right-hander reached his milestone by hoisting the last ball of the innings for a six to help MI post a massive 218 for five after they had been invited to bat first.
Yadav brought up his fifty off 32 balls with a four off Rashid Khan and went on to reach the three-figure mark from 49 deliveries inclusive of six sixes and 11 boundaries as MI became the first side to register five 200-plus totals in an IPL season.
As the GT bowlers struggled to grip the ball towards the end of the first innings, Yadav batted with confidence and accumulated 54 runs in the last three overs.
While chasing, GT lost Shubman Gill, Wriddhiman Saha and Hardik Pandya inside the first four overs and they lost half of their side for 55 and were facing the prospects of a huge defeat at 103 for eight in the 14th over.
At that stage not many would have imagined that the visitors would drag the innings till the final over, but Rashid spiced things up with an unbeaten 32-ball 79 and put on an unbeaten 88-run stand with Alzarri Joseph.
The dynamic Afghanistan all-rounder entertained the crowd with some explosive batting as he hoisted as many as 10 sixes and struck three boundaries after having completed his half century from 21 balls.He hammered two maximums in the 18th over, off Cameron Green, to bring up his fifty and in the final over, with 48 needed, he made batting look easy, hammering Kumar Kartikeya for three sixes.
Though he failed to guide the team home, Rashid’s knock denied MI a Net Run-Rate (NRR) advantage.
Until the 14th over, MI were dreaming of bettering their NRR amid an intense battle for a playoff spot, but the Afghanistan star player made sure that the margin of defeat was much lesser.
Chief scores
Mumbai Indians: 218/5 in 20 overs (Ishan Kishan 31, Rohit Sharma 29, Suryakumar Yadav 103 n.o, Vishnu Vinod 30, Rashid Khan 4/30)
Gujarat Titans: 191/8 in 20 overs (Vijay Shankar 29, David Miller 41, Rashid Khan 79 n.o, Akash Madhwal 3/31, Piyush Chawla 2/36, Kumar Kartikeya 2/37).
