Mumbai win first game in tense chase after Rohit’s 65

Skipper Rohit Sharma smashed 65 as Mumbai Indians edged out Delhi Capitals by six wickets in a last-ball IPL thriller to register their first win of the season yesterday.
Mumbai’s chase of 173 moved to the final delivery when impact player Tim David and Cameron Green got the winning runs to hand hosts Delhi their fourth straight loss in as many matches.
Delhi, led by David Warner and coached by Ricky Ponting, have endured a horrendous run in the T20 tournament to be in danger of an early exit from the play-off race.
The franchise is yet to win the Indian Premier League and suffered an early blow when captain Rishabh Pant was involved in a car crash in December to be ruled out of the season.
Mumbai remain the most successful IPL outfit, owned by Nita Ambani, wife of India’s richest man, Reliance Industries billionaire Mukesh Ambani.
The team, which is without pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah, out injured this season and missing England pace bowler Jofra Archer for the second straight match, bounced back from their opening two defeats.
Rohit said: “Obviously, winning the game is the most important thing and it’s a great feeling to cross the line. We’ve been working really, really hard and we had camps in Mumbai a couple of weeks before the tournament.”
He added: “To get the result feels really good and we’re going to cherish this. We recently played a Test match here and this pitch didn’t look different to that and looked dry.
“So, I thought it was important to get the slower bowlers into the game quickly. We thought 173 was chaseable, and everyone put their hand up. When I went to bat, I wanted to make full use of the powerplay because as the game went on, I thought it would be tough with the couple of quality spinners they had.
“We tried to create a partnership and good to see Tilak bat with that intent as well. We always knew it would be tough for the new batter to come and bat.
“We got a lot of young guys and it’s all about giving them confidence and trust in their ability. We want to have a healthy atmosphere and we don’t want to make drastic changes based on results,” Rohit said.
Rohit and the left-handed Ishan Kishan gave the former champions a flying start in their 71-run stand before a run out sent Kishan back to the pavilion.

Big partnership
Rohit, called “hitman” for his big hundreds and six-hitting, looked in supreme touch as he pulled Nortje for a six over deep square leg and another hit over the fence off Kuldeep Yadav. The Indian captain put on another big partnership of 68 with Tilak Varma, who made 41, but Mukesh Kumar raised hopes of a turnaround with successive strikes. He sent back Varma and then T20 sensation Suryakumar Yadav for a first ball duck to bring a live the home crowd that went crazy when Rohit departed five balls later off Mustafizur Rahman.
But David (13) and Green (17) kept their calm in a dramatic final over from Anrich Nortje, which witnessed a dropped catch, to steer the team home and the two batsmen stole a double after David pushed the ball to mid-off.
Earlier Delhi were bowled out for 172 in 19.4 overs despite Warner’s 51 and an attacking 54 by fellow left-hander Axar Patel after the hosts were invited to bat first.
Piyush Chawla rattled the opposition batting to return figures of 3-22 and was later substituted by David.
The once explosive Warner, who struck his third half-century of the season, stood firm but often struggled to find momentum until an attacking Axar joined the Australian opener in a 67-run partnership.
“You look at the last three IPL games, amazing,” Warner said after the match.
“Wrong end of it today, but the guys were fantastic,” Warner added.
“Two balls were wrong and that’s the game. We did well to bring it back in.
“Nortje is world-class and that’s what we expect from the big fella. Mustafiz too.
“Timmy David was on the wrong side of it, so I tried to keep it (the throw) at stump-height.
“I think from the last three games, we’ve some positives but we shouldn’t lose wickets in clumps. Axar should bat in the top four; he got us to a par total,” he said.

BRIEF SCORES
Mumbai Indians 173 for 4 (Rohit 65, Tilak 41, Mukesh 2-30) beat Delhi Capitals 172 (Axar 54, Warner 51, Chawla 3-22, Behrendorff 3-23) by 6 wickets