Mumbai Indians successfully defend 142 as Delhi Daredevils top order collapses

Mumbai Indians pulverised the Delhi Daredevils top order to successfully defend a small total and notch a 14-run win on Saturday at the Wankhede stadium. This was Mumbai’s sixth consecutive victory in the tenth edition of the Indian Premier League, while Delhi has now lost three in a row. Delhi captain Zaheer Khan won the toss, and elected to chase this time, a decision that looked sound till the innings break. Chasing a comparatively low total of 143, the Delhi were reduced to 24/6 and couldn’t recover from the early strikes. Mitch McLenaghan was adjudged the player of the match for his figures of 3/24.

Here’s a play-by-play of how the low-scoring match panned out.

Rabada’s IPL debut

Delhi started with a spate of changes in the playing XI with Kagiso Rabada, Corey Anderson and Aditya Tare coming in for Angelo Mathews, Sam Billings and Jayant Yadav. Zaheer decided to go in with a pace battery, with Amit Mishra being the only spinner, and the gamble seemed to pay off as Mumbai managed to put up only 142 for 8.

South African pace sensation Rabada, who was Delhi’s most expensive player at the 2017 auctions, finally made his IPL debut. He gave away five wide and ended up conceding eight runs in his first over. Zaheer made him change ends then and was rewarded when the youngster picked up the wicket of Parthiv Patel with a stunner of a yorker that castled the opener. Overall, the 5 crore pick impressed with his pace and variations, ending with figures of 1 for 30.

Rare failure for Mumbai batsmen

Table toppers Mumbai possess one of the most dangerous batting line ups and after the explosive batting in the last game against Kings XI Punjab, would have been high on confidence coming into the home game. However the dangerous batting lineup had a rare collective failure.

After Rabada got, last match’s hero Jos Buttler was run out on 18 off 18, the highest score for Mumbai, after a wonderful, instinctive piece of fielding by Sanju Samson and Orange Cap contender Nitish Rana fell to Pat Cummins, pulling straight deep mid-wicket. Then Amit Mishra got captain Rohit Sharma cheaply, all within the first 10 overs.

From 47/1 in the first five overs, Delhi stifled them to 68/4 in 10 overs, which completely killed Mumbai’s momentum. Consider this, at one point Pollard was on four off 13 deliveries, an uncharacteristic start for the T20 specialist.

High intensity fielding from Delhi 

From Samson’s stunning run out to Zaheer Khan’s aggressive field placements, Delhi rarely let up on the intensity on the field.

A potential late onslaught was avoided, as Delhi continued the sustained pressure with their fielding and tight bowling. Pollard fell at the start of the 18th over as he tried accelerate, but a clever ball from Cummins saw him mistime a lofted shot and had to walk back on 26 off 29 balls. Rabada followed it up with a spectacular run out of Harbhajan Singh in the 19th over that would have made a football player proud. Hardik Pandya ran for quick single, but Rabada was quicker and kicked the ball on to the stump before Bhajji could ground his bat. Hardik himself was then run out by Karun Nair in the last over as he tried to run two. In the end, Mishra finished with 2 for 18, while Cummins got 2 for 20 in their four-over spells, while run outs claimed three.

Mumbai bowlers pulverise Delhi’s top order

The Delhi batsmen couldn’t have had a worse start to their innings. Aditya Tare, on his return, was out on the fourth ball for a duck, courtesy a fantastic direct hit by Hardik. Mitch McLenaghan, the pick of the Mumbai bowlers, then got Samson on only 9 off six in the third over, whose drive went straight to Rohit. Shreyas Iyer followed soon after, edging the burly New Zealander behind on 6, reducing Delhi to 20/3 in only the fourth over. But bigger blows were to come. Corey Anderson, promoted to fourth, was out LBW to McLenaghan for a three-ball duck, Delhi 21/4. Rishabh Pant then edged a simple catch to slip off Jasprit Bumrah, for another duck, leaving Delhi in tatters for 21/5 in under six overs. Karun Nair struggled his way to 5 off 15, with a mere three runs added to the tally. A simple chase of 143 suddenly looked far more formidable as the Delhi top order surrendered without a fight in the face of incisive Mumbai bowling.

Rabada-Morris put up a defiant stand 

Just as all hope seemed lost for the Daredevils, debutant Kagiso Rabada, sent ahead of Chris Morris, got into a rescue act. Soon, he was joined by the other South African on crease, and together they stitched a valuable partnership of 91. Morris top scored for the team with a 41-ball 52.

After stabilising the run rate, that has slipped as low at 3.9 per over at one point, the two started attacking the bad balls and slowly getting runs in the board. A Harbhajan over went for 10, Bumrah was taken for 13. The run rate slowly climbed to six an over, but by the asking rate skyrocketed to 10 and then to 12 and even 17, and that looked to tall an ask, even though the partnership flourished. The defiant stand finally came to an end in the penultimate over as a Bumrah finally found the stumps and Rabada departed after a creditable 44 off 39.

Delhi needed 25 off the last over, commendable given that Delhi looked like they would be all out in under 15 overs. However, the task was too big for the tall South African as the Delhi lost their third match on the trot.