Cameron Green smashes unbeaten 64, Arjun Tendulkar seals MI's win over SRH with first IPL wicket
Young Arjun Tendulkar seals the victory with a first IPL wicket in the final over as SRH lose by 14 runs in Hyderabad.
Young Arjun Tendulkar held his nerves bowling the final over to help Mumbai Indians beat Sunrisers Hyderabad by 14 runs at Hyderabad's Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on Wednesday. SRH needed 24 runs in 12 balls with two wickets in hand. Cameron Green bowled the 19th over against Abdul Samad and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, conceding just four runs.
MI captain Rohit Sharma had bowled out his experienced bowlers. The choice was between Arjun Tendulkar and Hrithik Shokeen. Rohit went with Tendulkar who had bowled his first two overs with the new ball for 14 runs. Tendulkar bowled to his field. Dangerman Samad was run out on the second ball to tilt the game in MI’s favour. Tendulkar wrapped it up by dismissing Bhuvneshwar Kumar off the penultimate ball.
MI’s third win in a row lifted them to six points.
GREEN SHOW
Green was MI’s hero, scoring his maiden half-century and taking 1/29. The Hyderabad crowd had seen how destructive Green can be when he played the T20 game for Australia against India last September. Then, as an opener, he powered to 52 off 21 balls at a strike rate of 247.62. On Wednesday, in IPL, Green faced the pressure as his franchise’s costliest buy (R17.5 crore). Batting at No 3 he had to adapt to the slow pitch and anchor the innings. Green chose the stage to show why MI has invested so much in him.
The 23-year-old all-rounder took his time, and once he had assessed the conditions, exploded to score an unbeaten 64, propelling MI to 192/5. MI’s Hyderabad recruit, Tilak Varma treated his home crowd to some classic strokeplay during a dazzling cameo of 37 (17 balls, 2x4, 4x6) in a partnership of 56 off 28 balls.
Overall, it was smart batting show by MI. The pitch was slow and getting runs was hard work, needing the batters to take their chances. Openers Rohit Sharma (28 - 18b) and Ishan Kishan (38 - 31b) did their bit with a start of 41 in 4.4 overs.
Defending the total, MI had a perfect start as last match’s centurion Harry Brook fell in the second over. Jason Behrendorff cramped the dashing strokeplayer with a short ball to draw the top-edge which was caught by Suryakumar Yadav at cover point. With Tendulkar also bowling tidily (2-0-14-0) from the other end to create the pressure with the new ball, Behrendorff struck a second blow in the fourth over by inducing an edge off Rahul Tripathi. Even captain Aiden Markram failed to get a move on and SRH finished the powerplay overs at 42/2.
Green could do nothing wrong. In his first over, he had SRH’s captain and batting mainstay, Markram, caught at deep midwicket, reducing them to 71/3. One run later, Abhishek Sharma fell to leg-spinner Piyush Chawla.
Both sides were in a similar situation for the better part of their innings. After the 13th over, SRH were 106/4, needing 87 from 42 balls. MI after 14 overs were 104/3. The difference was how they finished their innings. In their last six overs, MI amassed 89 runs. Heinrich Klaasen raised the hope of the home team with two fours and two sixes off Chawla, taking 21 runs in the 14th over, but he holed out the last ball. The set Mayank Agarwal fell in the following over to Riley Meredith for 48. Their lower order though kept finding the boundaries.
In contrast, MI had shown tremendous acceleration in the final six after struggling to get spinners Washington Sundar and Mayank Markande away until then. Green and Tilak pounced on left-arm pacer Marco Jansen, taking 21 runs in an over to shift the momentum.
The over started with Jansen following Green with a short ball, and though cramped, the tall batter cleared short third man for four. On the third ball, Green pulled Jansen for another four. Tilak then smashed the last two balls for sixes.
While the main challenge for the other batters was to get runs off the spinners, it didn’t matter for Varma. In the 16th over, he played two stunning shots for a four (over extra-cover) and a six (over long leg) off leggie Markande to help MI collect 14 runs. Varma’s knock came to an end on the third ball of the 16th over, but at 151/4 the situation was tailormade for Green and Tim David.
Despite two excellent overs from Bhuvneshwar Kumar, the two cashed in with 41 runs from 21 balls, targetting left-arm T Natarajan for a 20-run 18th over and a 14-run 20th over.