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IPL 2023: Has Mumbai Indians found the winning momentum?

A fine knock by Australian all-rounder Cameron Green sees Rohit Sharma's side beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 14 runs

Published: Tue 18 Apr 2023, 11:25 PM

By
Leslie Wilson Jr

Mumbai Indians batter Cameron Green plays a shot. — PTI

Mumbai Indians may well have found the launch pad that it was looking for to help propel it toward a record sixth IPL title.

It may not have been straightforward and it may not have been totally convincing but Rohit Sharma’s men did enough to defeat Sunrisers Hyderabad by 14 runs in a pivotal match on Tuesday.

Once again it was a contentious toss to win and once again the captain that called right may have made the wrong decision.

Here are five takeaways from the match that lifted Mumbai from eighth to sixth place in the IPL table.

Building partnerships

Right through its innings, Mumbai’s batters found ways to forge crucial partnerships that would take it to a total that was above par on the ground that was tailor-made for batting.

Cameron Green (64 off 40 deliveries), coming in at the fall of skipper Rohit Sharma’s wicket, played a pivotal innings by forging four hugely significant alliances with Ishan Kishan (38 off 31), Tilak Varma (37 of 17) and Tim David (16 off 11).

Green signal

If Australian all-rounder Green appeared to be caught by stoplights early in his innings as he trotted to 28 runs off 24 deliveries, the acceleration he produced in the death overs almost single-handedly propelled Mumbai close to what was a winning total in the end.

Green used his six-foot six-inch frame to good advantage to get on top of the Sunrisers' bowling which until his arrival had looked pretty competent.

Big let-downs

Hyderabad, who like Mumbai started the tournament with two losses appeared to have found its rhythm with convincing back-to-back wins over Punjab (8 wickets) and Kolkata Knight Riders (23 runs).

However, once it lost last-match centurion Harry Brook in the second over with just 17 runs on board, it seemed short of confidence and the batters lacked character.

And unlike Mumbai, it struggled to build partnerships thereafter with the best being 46 runs for the third wicket between Mayank Aggarwal (48 from 41) and Markram (22 from 17).

Catch perfect

Good fielders have a high reaction time and Aiden Markram produced two outstanding catches in the middle overs to get rid of a well-set Ishan Kishen (39 of 31 deliveries) and star batter Suryakumar Yadav (7 from three) in a pivotal 12th over.

In T20 cricket you have got to make the most of the chances that come your way and Markram, who has the best hands in the business, showed how it is done.

Wrong decision?

Markram will be ruing the decision to give Mumbai the first strike on a wicket that he believed would be easier to bat on in the chase.

For the last couple of matches, there has been a lot made of the dew factor and that it would help pacers, but it is the spinners who have excelled in most cases.

Chasing a big total puts a lot of pressure on the batters and Hyderabad’s much-vaunted batting line-up caved under the pressure despite the support of a huge home crowd.

The decision to bat or bowl first at the start of a match is without doubt one of the biggest decisions that a captain must make and perhaps this is where Markram erred.

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