Picture Credit: Twitter/IPL
If the final day of the league stages of IPL 2021 could be described only in one word, it would be 'Entertainment' without any doubt. While RCB and DC were playing for pride, the stakes were quite high in the other match between Mumbai Indians and Sunrisers Hyderabad. The defending champions needed to register a huge win in order to qualify for the playoffs.
It looked like we were in for a miracle in Abu Dhabi as Ishan Kishan began the onslaught against the SRH bowlers on a brilliant batting wicket. The left-handed batsman played very freely and went on to hit 84 runs off only 32 deliveries to set up a perfect platform for his teammates to build upon. Although there was a mini-collapse in the middle, Suryakumar Yadav (82 off 40) also produced a magical knock to guide his side to 235/9 in 20 overs.
Mumbai Indians bow out of IPL 2021
In order to get their NRR ahead of KKR, Rohit Sharma's side needed to restrict the opposition for 65 or less, which was always going to be an impossible task on such a good wicket. Jason Roy and Abhishek Sharma struck some mesmerizing hits in the powerplay to completely shun MI's chances. While they did manage to win the match by 42 runs, getting knocked out of the league stages was not something that the 5-time champions would have imagined before the start of the tournament.
The netizens did not miss out on the opportunity to troll Mumbai Indians as they failed to progress to the playoffs after winning two back-to-back titles. While some fans asked them to try next year, others just praised SRH for doing the job on the day.