Mumbai Indians hand Sunrisers Hyderabad first loss of IPL 2017 T20 campaign

Mumbai Indians’ impressive all-round show on Wednesday saw them beat defending champions Sunrisers Hyderabad by four wickets at the Wankhede Stadium in the 2017 Indian Premier League (IPL)

Mumbai Indians produced an impressive all-round performance to continue their domination of Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Wankhede Stadium, making it three wins out of three at the venue with a four-wicket verdict on Wednesday. (HIGHLIGHTS | LIVE STREAMING INFO)

Krunal Pandya (L) and Nitish Rana helped Mumbai Indians chase down the target of 159 during their match against Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai, in 2017 Indian Premier League T20. (BCCI)

It was the first defeat in the current campaign for the defending champions.(SCORECARD) 

Restricted to 158 for eight, David Warner would have still fancied his team’s chances given the bowling attack at his disposal. But to make a fight of it, they needed all their top bowlers to be at their best. Their spin sensation Rashid Khan again started brightly but Sunrisers’ hopes suffered when their main strike bowler Mustafizur Rahman went for 30 runs in his first two overs. (FULL IPL 2017 COVERAGE)

It proved to be a good toss to win for Mumbai as the ball became difficult to grip due to heavy dew in the second innings.

When Kieron Pollard fell at the total of 111, the equation was 48 off 38 balls with six wickets in hand. However, the left-handed pair of Nitish Rana and Krunal Pandya made it a cakewalk. Krunal smashed a 20-ball 37 and Rana scored 45 off 36 balls as the hosts coasted home with eight balls to spare.

Young guys shine

As to why the IPL is said to be a good platform for young talent is being seen again this season in the way Mumbai Indians’ 23-year-old batsman Rana and Sunrisers Hyderabad’s 20-year-old Rashid are making a mark.

On Wednesday, Rashid built on his success in the first two games by getting the better of Rohit Sharma, one of the most successful batsmen in IPL’s history. Rana followed his scores of 34 and 50 with another impressive innings.

Rashid was unheard of outside Afghanistan till last week but after outfoxing Rohit with a googly, even the rock stars of the Indian cricket team would have sat up and taken notice.

Bowling show

Earlier, the Mumbai Indians bowlers did well to restrict Sunrisers to a total of 158 for eight despite an opening stand of 81 between Warner and Shikhar Dhawan.

All the main bowlers of the home team put up a disciplined effort with Harbhajan Singh and Jasprit Bumrah leading the way with figures of 4-0-23-2 and 4-0-24-3.

Sunrisers’ problem was no one could really cut loose. They started and finished sluggishly. After the six overs of powerplay, the visitors were 34 for no loss (run rate of 5.66). They got just seven, six and five runs in the last three overs.

The only bowler they were able to target was Mitchell McCleneghan, who went for over 10 runs an over.

Warner and Shikhar perished when well set. The skipper was out on 49 and his partner on 48.