How good of a team are the Mumbai Indians? After dishing out their most dominant performance of IPL 13 in the opening tiebreaker against Delhi Capitals, they might well deserve the tag of best T20 team in franchise cricket history.
The full power of MI came to the fore on Thursday night at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium as it edged out DC, entering its second consecutive IPL final. After the 57-race loss, Delhi will now have to wait until Sunday, where it will face the winner of Friday’s tie to reach its first final. (Total IPL Coverage 2020)
The most impressive aspect of the defending champions’ performance was their fight in difficult situations; every time DC put them under pressure after hitting them, they bounced back. Without any contribution from the bat from two of its best players, Rohit Sharma and Kieron Pollard, Delhi’s bowling attack was still broken in 200 runs.
Still, even that hitting display was overshadowed by the way Trent Boult and Jasprit Bumrah blew up the Capitals’ higher order in the first eight balls of the chase. With DC’s score at zero times three, the contest was over.
Winning the toss is considered a huge advantage due to the dew factor in the second half of the game, but IM hitters neutralized it with a formidable total on the board. R Ashwin of Delhi was the only player to challenge IM with an excellent performance from three wickets for 29 runs.
Quinton De Kock (40 of 25 balls) and Suryakumar Yadav (51 of 38 balls) gave MI the kickoff. They made sure the early loss of Captain Sharma didn’t hurt them by capitalizing on the powerplay overs to bring the score to 63-by-one, their highest score of six at this IPL.
Later, Ishan Kishan absorbed the pressure during intermissions to break Capital’s bowling plans. It was his association with Hardik Pandya that took the Capitals breathless. MI added 92 runs in the last six overs after stuttering between the 11th and 14th overs, when they only got 15 runs from four overs.
What hurt Delhi the most was how its sprinters Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje disarmed. The two conceded as many as 92 runs to each other, the most by them in an inning at this IPL. That was mainly due to a late assault from Hardik and Kishan’s counterattack. In the final three overs alone, Hardik got into Daniel Sams, Rabada and Nortje to finish the innings with 17, 18 and 20 runs. The two added 60 runs on 23 balls.
Two hundred was always going to be a difficult question. But the difficult became much more difficult once both Boult and Bumrah launched a double wicket maiden each, Boult in the first and Bumrah during the last rites.
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