Mumbai: Dinesh Karthik and Rohit Sharma decimated the Delhi Daredevils bowlers left, right and centre and helped Mumbai Indians win the IPL match by a huge margin of 44 runs at Wankhede stadium, Mumbai on Tuesday.
Batting first, Mumbai Indians posted the huge total of 209. Dinesh Karthik and Rohit Sharma added 131 runs for the third wicket partnership and took the game away from Delhi. Karthik scored a quick-fire 86 in just 48 balls whereas Sharma piled up 74 runs in 50 balls. Dinesh Karthik was adjudged the Man-of-the-Match for his brilliant performance with the bat.
Though, David Warner gave Delhi some hope while chasing, his brilliant run with the bat came to an end when he was disguised with a slower one by Mitchell Johnson. Manprit Juneja also did well and scored 49 runs to keep the Daredevils in hunt but it was too late for Delhi to chase that humongous target of 210 runs.
While chasing down the mammoth total of 210, Delhi Daredevils (DD) had a worst possible start as they lost the wicket of Unmukt Chand on the first ball of their innings and credit for that wicket goes more to Ricky Ponting, the 40-year-old took a stunner off Harbhajan Singh's bowling. Soon Delhi lost a big wicket of Mahela Jayawardene at the score of just 13 runs and that came as a big blow for the visitors.
However Warner-Juneja brought back Delhi back in to the game by hitting some massive sixes and boundaries now and then. The duo added 82 runs for the third partnership before Warner departed after scoring 61 runs off just 37 balls.
Juneja kept fighting till the very end but failed to get any support from his teammates who were losing their wickets at regular intervals. Jeevan Mendis got out for nil. Though Irfan Pathan played some beautiful shots, he couldn’t hold himself at the crease for too long and was caught by Johnson at deep mid-wicket off Pragyan Ojha.
After this Delhi were lost the plot completely as they kept losing the wickets and were restricted to 165 runs which handed over the second victory of this edition of Indian Premier League to Mumbai Indians.
Earlier, Mumbai had a terrible start as the lost their opening duo of Sachin Tendulkar in the first two overs at the score of just one run. But after that, it was a different ball-game all together as Dinesh Karthik and Rohit Sharma started dealing in boundaries. Both the batsmen were easily clearing the ropes and were playing sensible cricket shots. Karthik was the one who started taking on the bowlers and reached his fifty in no time. He took just 30 deliveries to get past that 50-run mark. Before getting dismissed to Morkel, who deceived him with a slower one, Karthik went on to score 86 off just 48 balls which was studded with 14 fours and two sixes.
Meanwhile Sharma too was at his best with the bat and smashed the Delhi bowlers all over the ground. Sharma scored three sixes in the final over of the innings to help Mumbai surpass the 200 run mark for the first time in this season of IPL. He scored a well-deserved 74 off just 50 balls, including four fours and five sixes.
And to add to Delhi woes, Ambati Rayudu too smashed 24 off just 8 balls.
By ISN