Five-time champions Mumbai Indians did everything it could to qualify for the knockout stage of the IPL 2023 on Sunday, vanquishing bottom-placed Sunrisers Hyderabad, but luck was still needed in the end
Mumbai Indians (Pic: AFP)
Five-time champions Mumbai Indians did everything it could to qualify for the knockout stage of the IPL 2023 on Sunday, vanquishing bottom-placed Sunrisers Hyderabad, but luck was still needed in the end.
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Thanks to Cameron Green's magnificent maiden century (100 not out) and Rohit Sharma's half-century, Mumbai earned a crucial comprehensive eight-wicket win in their last league match and a sliver of hope of progressing through the group.
But the players couldn’t properly celebrate their achievement of knocking off the target of 201 with 12 balls and eight wickets to spare to accumulate 16 points from 14 matches until the result of the encounter between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Gujarat Titans was in the books.
With Virat Kohli lighting up Chinnaswamy in the first inning with a blistering century, Rohit Sharma and Co. knew their fate rested on how the defending champions fared in the run chase. As the MI team searched for any scrap of information from the game which was still being played hours after rain threatened to wash it out, players and coaches huddled around people with access to phones on the pitch as they streamed coverage of the other match.
Also Read: IPL 2023: Jammu and Kashmir's Vivrant Sharma breaks 15-year-old record against Mumbai
In a video shared by Mumbai Indians on their Instagram handle, the players are seen embracing each other as their achievement dawned on them and the celebrations could begin. Some danced to their heart's content, ecstatic that they made the final phase of the tournament. Watch the video here.
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Coming to the match, Green smacked eight fours and eight sixes during his unbeaten 100 which came off just 47 balls. He added 53 runs with Suryakumar Yadav (25 not out) for the unbroken third wicket to take MI over the line.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar drew the first blood when he dismissed Ishan Kishan (14) in the third over. Rohit got a lifeline in the fifth over when Sanvir Singh dropped a difficult catch at midwicket off Nitish Kumar Reddy.
But Green provided the impetus, as his four boundaries and a couple of sixes took MI to 60/1 after the powerplay.
While Green brought up his fifty off only 20 balls, in the ninth over, Rohit was off to a modest start, hitting his first six only on the 22nd ball that he faced.
The MI skipper completed his second fifty of this IPL, off 31 balls, and his second-wicket stand with Green took the total past the 100-run mark. Soon after this, Rohit got another reprieve when Sanvir spilled a regulation catch at cover off Kartik Tyagi.
However, a sensational catch from Reddy had Mayank Dagar celebrating Rohit's wicket wildly in the 14th over. Rohit's 56 came off 37 balls (8x4s, 1x6s), having added 128 off 65 balls with Green.
Earlier, unheralded Uttarakhand pacer Akash Madhwal nailed his yorkers consistently at the death as Mumbai Indians restricted Sunrisers Hyderabad to 200 for 5 in their final IPL encounter, on Sunday.
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