Picture Credit: Twitter/IPL
What a game of cricket Mumbai Indians and Punjab Kings produced at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi. With both the teams needing to win this game to be the captain of their own ship, with regards to the Playoff qualification, it was eventually the Mumbai Indians who pulled off a tight win.
Opting to bowl first, the Mumbai bowlers had done well to restrict the Punjab batting to 135/6. While Jasprit Bumrah picked 2 wickets for 24 runs, Kieron Pollard bowled a solitary over and scalped 2 wickets conceding 8 runs. Playing in place of Adam Milne, Nathan Coulter-Nile was also pretty impressive with the ball and conceded just 19 runs in his 4 overs but did not get a wicket.
Their spells ensured that despite Aiden Markram's 42 from 29 balls coming at a strike rate of over 144, Punjab could not cross the 140 mark. Deepak Hooda also scored 28 runs but consumed 26 balls for his innings.
In response, Mumbai had lost Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav off successive deliveries in the fourth over to Ravi Bishnoi, however, in the end, Saurabh Tiwary's (45 off 37) as well as a clinical finish from Hardik Pandya (40*) and Kieron Pollard (15*) helped Mumbai win the match by 6 wickets, with an over to go.
The finish was also crucial since the required run rate had crept to 10 runs an over with Hardik playing just his second match after recovering from an injury. The result means, Mumbai finally got off the mark in the UAE leg of the competition after a hat-trick of losses in the Middle East since the resumption. Consequently, they end up fifth on the points tally with Kolkata Knight Riders edging them to fourth place owing to a better net run rate.
Punjab, meanwhile, are still at eight points after 11 matches but still are in with a chance to reach the playoffs if they win their remaining games and the results of few other matches also go in their favour.
Following the win, there has been a lot of reactions pouring in on Twitter. Check out some of the hilarious ones here: