Hyderabad: Cameron Green struck an unbeaten 64 and Tilak Verma a fine cameo while Arjun Tendulkar held his nerve in the final over for his maiden wicket in the Indian Premier League (IPL) as Mumbai Indians (MI) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad by 14 runs at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium here on Tuesday.
Cameron Green’s unbeaten 64 off 40 along with Tilak Verma’s 37-run cameo off 17 balls guided Mumbai Indians to 192/5. In reply, Sunrisers fell 14 runs short in the chase against MI’s impressive bowling display. With a third successive win, MI jumped two spots to sixth in the table.
Chasing 193, SRH got off to a slow start as they were reduced to 25/2 within four overs. Sunrisers suffered an early blow as Jason Behrendorff got the big fish Harry Brook, the centurion from the last game, in the second over.
Behrendorff claimed his second in the fourth over, dismissing Rahul Tripathi cheaply for 7. With 16 runs off the next two overs, SRH took the Power-play score to 42/2.
Afterwards, Mayank Agarwal and Aiden Markram steadied the ship with their calculated batting.
After his heroics with the bat, Cameron Green made a positive impact with the ball. After Markram hit him for a boundary off the first ball in the 9th over, Green returned the favour by dismissing the SRH captain for 22 runs, ending a 46-run stand for the third wicket.
The next over, Piyush Chawla sent Abhishek Sharma packing for 1. Halfway through the chase, SRH were reeling at 76/4.
After conceding three boundaries and a maximum in the 14th over Chawla was quick to bounce back as he sent Klassen back to the hut on the last delivery of the over, reducing SRH to 127/5.
Riley Meredith got the big breakthrough in the next over as he denied Agarwal’s half-century after dismissing the set batter for 48 in the 15th over and made the task tougher for the hosts as half of the side went back to the pavilion.
With 24 needed off 12, Green bowled a superb penultimate over, conceding just four runs to bring the equation down to 20 needed off the last over.
Rohit Sharma handed the ball to Arjun Tendulkar to bowl the last over. And the youngster held his nerve, picked up his maiden IPL wicket and conceded just five runs in a superb last over as SRH were bowled out for 178.
Earlier, Mumbai Indians had a modest start as they lost the captain early and scored 53/1 in the Power-play.
The SRH bowlers were keeping a tight leash on run rate MI went without a boundary for 18 balls.
Then, Kishan hit the paddle on the next and went for back-to-back boundaries against Mayank Markande to release the pressure. Halfway through MI were 80/1.
Ishan Kishan and Cameron Green steadied things in the middle before Marco Jansen struck twice in one over to dismiss Ishan Kishan and Suryakumar Yadav and turned the momentum.
Then, local boy Tilak Varma brought the much-needed impetus to the innings. He along with Green counter-attacked and added a 50+ stand for the fourth wicket.
Varma hammered two fours and back-to-back sixes on the last two balls of the 15th over to Jansen and collected 21 runs off the over. There was no stopping Varma as he hit a boundary and a six off the next over, giving some pace to MI’s innings. However, his crucial innings of 37 off 17 came to an end in the next over.
The next over Cameron Green, who was promoted up the order in tough conditions, brought up his maiden IPL fifty off just 33 balls with a hat-trick of boundaries.
Green and Tim David together collected 14 runs off the final over with the latter getting run out on the last delivery of the innings. With 62 runs coming off the last five overs, MI posted a competitive total of 192 for the loss of five wickets.
Brief scores:
Mumbai Indians 192/5 in 20 overs (Cameron Green 64 not out, Tilak Verma 37; Marco Jansen 2-43) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 178 all out in 19.5 overs (Mayank Agarwal 48, Heinrich Klaasen 36; Riley Meredith 2-33, Jason Behrendorff 2-37, Piyush Chawla 2-43) by 14 runs.
(IANS)
