CHRIS DHAMBARAGE
COLOMBO – Sri Lanka’s Wanindu Hasaranga picked up two wickets, but his efforts turned out to be a losing cause as Mumbai Indians (MI) hammered Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) by six wickets in the 54th match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) played at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Tuesday.
The 25-year-old leg-spinner provided the RCB a glimpse of hope after claiming two early wickets before Suryakumar Yadav’s explosive knock of 83 helped the home side to reach their target with 21 balls to spare.
Hasaranga was introduced into the attack as early as in the fifth over of the innings as the MI openers Ishan Kishan and Skipper Rohit Sharma set about their target with a sparkling 51-run stand from just 4.4 overs.
Left-hand wicket-keeper batsman Kishan was the more aggressive as he hoisted four sixes and struck the same number of boundaries to put the RCB bowlers under tremendous pressure from the beginning.
However, Hasaranga rose to the occasion and was equal to the task as he delivered a magnificent fifth over to put the brakes on the scoring rate and to bring a complete change to the match situation.
His first ball was hammered by Kishan to the boundary over the bowler’s head, but Hasaranga immediately came back strongly to send down a dot-ball as Kishan was forced to play a defensive shot.
In the third ball of the over Kishan danced down the track against the googly and used his feet well to come down the track and to loft the ball towards long-on for a maximum.
But Hasaranga had the final laugh in the next delivery as Kishan got a faint edge while looking to play the cut shot against a good length ball and the wicket-keeper Anuj Rawat made no mistake with the catch.
Hasaranga conceded a single to Yadav in the fifth delivery but had the big wicket of Sharma in the final ball of the over as MI were in some trouble at 52 for two after five overs.
This was the fifth successive occasion that Sharma was dismissed for a single-digit score as the right-hander got stuck on the pads while looking to come down and tuck it across.
The umpire turned down a huge appeal from the bowler, but a review found that the ball is going on to hit the stumps as Hasaranga goes on to claim his ninth wicket in the current IPL season.
However, thereafter, Yadav took over the charge as he scored a 35-ball 83 and his 140-run association with Nehal Wadhera for the third wicket off 66 balls helped the MI earn its third successful 200-plus chase this season.
Chief scores
Royal Challengers Bangalore: 199/6 in 20 overs (Francois du Plessis 65, Glenn Maxwell 68, Dinesh Karthik 30, Jason Behrendorff 3/36)
Mumbai Indians: 200/4 in 16.3 overs (Ishan Kishan 42, Suryakumar Yadav 83, Nehal Wadhera 52, Wanindu Hasaranga 2/53, Vijayakumar Vyshak 2/37).
