Kolkata: A thrilling win by the Rising Pune Supergiant against the Sunrisers Hyderabad thanks to Jaidev Unadkat’s hat-trick, and a dominating victory by the Mumbai Indians against the Delhi Daredevils summed up an exciting day of cricket in India.
In the first match, left-arm pacer Unadkat took his first hat-trick and registered a terrific fifer (5/30) to hand a 12 run defeat to the David Warner led Sunrisers Hyderabad after the home team won the toss and chose to field at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium.
Batting first, Pune could only muster 148 runs losing eight wickets in their 20 overs riding on contributions by Ben Stokes (39), Steve Smith (34) MS Dhoni (31) and opener Ajinkya Rahane (22). For Hyderabad, the best bowler was Siddharth Kaul who snared four wickets giving away just 29 runs in his quota of four overs.
It looked like a cakewalk of a chase for the home team but Unadkat had other plans. He was ably supported by Ben Stokes (3/30) who dismissed the top three of the batting order which had the likes of the in-form David Warner (40), Shikhar Dhawan (19) and Kane Williamson (4).
The left-armer then ran through the rest of the batting as the Sunrisers ended up on 136/9, 12 short of the Pune score. A fine hattrick in the last over of the match sealed a win for Pune who have been in some serious form of late. They now have displaced the Kolkata Knight Riders to reach to the second spot in the league table while Sunrisers are the fourth placed team now.
Simmons-Patel add 79
If the first match of the day was a thriller, the second one was an absolute one-sided contest with the Mumbai Indians hammering the Delhi Daredevils at the Feroz Shah Kotla by a whopping 146 run margin.
Batting first, Lendl Simmons (66) got Mumbai off to a rollicking start as he and Parthiv Patel (25) accumulated 79 runs in 8.4 overs before the latter was dismissed by Amit Mishra (1/37). But that didn’t help Delhi’s cause as the big-hitting Kieron Pollard made his way into the crease and plundered 63 from just 35 balls with four sixes and five fours.
Later, a quickfire 29 from Hardik Pandya saw Mumbai Indians end on a huge total of 212/3. Delhi pacer Pat Cummins was clobbered for 59 runs in his four overs.
Fresh from their scintillating 200-run chas against the Gujarat Lions, Delhi looked to repeat that same feat but this time, their plans failed miserably as they lost their in-form young opener Sanju Samson on the very first ball of the innings to left-armer Mitchell McClenaghan.
That set the tone for the rest of the batting as top guns like Rishabh Pant(0) , Marlon Samuels (1), Corey Anderson (10) failed miserably as the home team was shot out for a paltry 66 in 13.4 overs. For Mumbai, Karn Sharma (3/11), Harbhajan Singh (3/22) and Lasith Malinga (2/5) put on a collective bowling effort to help Mumbai with 18 points, qualify for the playoffs-the first team to do so in this year’s competition. This 146-run loss is the biggest margin victory (in terms of runs) in IPL.
Mumbai Indians having qualified, are sitting pretty at the top of the table while Delhi Daredevils are at the eighth position, with eight points from 11 games.
Brief scores:
Rising Pune Supergiant 148/8 (Ben Stokes 39, Steve Smith 34; Siddharth Kaul 4/29) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 139/9 (Yuvraj Singh 47, David Warner 40; Jaydev Unadkat 5/30) by 12 runs.
Mumbai Indians 212/3 (Lendl Simmons 66, Kieron Pollard 63*; Amit Mishra 1/37) beat Delhi Daredevils 66 all out in 13.4 overs (Karun Nair 21, Corey Anderson 10; Karn Sharma 3/11) by 146 runs.