Sandeep Sharma announced his return from injury with magnificent figures of 5 for 18, the best by any bowler in this season’s IPL, before Yashaswi Jaiswal blazed back to form with a sparkling 59-ball century, as Rajasthan Royals signed off from the Jaipur leg of their campaign with a seventh statement win in eight matches to cement their table-topping status.
An excellent five-fer from Sandeep Sharma was a key as Rajasthan Royals thumped a hapless Mumbai Indians at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur for their seventh of the season, a drubbing of the five-time champions that edged the hosts closer to a Playoffs berth. It was the returning Sandeep Sharma’s ‘s 5 for 18 that was instrumental in keeping Mumbai Indians down to a sub-par total of 179, a score that Jaiswal helped chase down with nine wickets and eight balls to spare, thereby signaling his return to form after a subdued start to the season.
Pitch and Toss
There’s been four games (at this venue this season), teams batting first have won twice, teams fielding first have also won twice. Spinners haven’t necessarily dominated over seamers. When you look at the team scores, they have been around 180-190, high, but not too high at the same time. Tonight, we are in the middle as well – boundary sizes square – 67m either side, straight – 76m. This pitch looks very very beautiful, it’s dry, it’s hard and it’s even.
Why isn’t there a score over 200? I think one of the reasons is players presently like bounce and there’s not a lot of moisture in this pitch. Moisture is what creates bounce and that’s why it’s very difficult to play the bowlers that are bowling directly straight at the stumps.
The players are a little hesitant to score off every ball or play cross-batted shots. You’d still see a score close to 200 because it’s beautiful to bat on but to get over 200, you need a bit of bounce. Nothing to fear for the batters, but they got to be very careful playing the cross-batted shots. Two great batting teams, I think we are in for a great treat.” reckons Brian Lara and Natalie Germanos in the report
Hardik Pandya in his 100th game the MI skipper won the toss and chose to bat and made 3 changes in the squad as Nuwan Thushara, Nehal Wadhera and Piyush Chawla comes in for Romario Shepherd, Shreyas Gopal and Aakash Madhwal.
Rajasthan Royals skipper Sanju Samson bowling first brings back Sandeep Sharma for Kuldeep Sen.
Trent Boult, Sandeep Sharma boss the powerplay for RR
At the Wankhede three weeks ago, Trent Boult silenced Mumbai’s home support with the prized scalp of Rohit Sharma, who grazed his first ball of the match – and the fifth of the innings – through to Sanju Samson behind the stumps. It was a case of rinse-and-repeat in the rematch: Rohit c Samson b Boult, again from the fifth ball, albeit this time with 6 to his name.
One filleted four through deep third, then a wild swing through the full length, for Samson to rush round from behind the stumps and gather with a tumble. Remarkably, it was the 26th time that Boult had struck in the first over of his IPL career.
Mumbai had batted first after winning the toss, on the proviso that there’s not a lot of dew on offer when chasing in Jaipur. There was, however, sufficient movement off another dry surface to reward Royals’ attacking full lengths, and after one ball of the fourth over, Sandeep Sharma had launched a memorable performance in style, to reduce his opponents to a ropey 20 for 3.
The first of his victims was Ishan Kishan, caught behind for a third-ball duck as he went fishing to Sandeep’s wide line, pushed tantalisingly up into his arc. Then, after a flurry of two fours in three balls that had hinted at riches to come, Suryakumar Yadav swung without timing across the scrambled seam, and was already wincing as the ball plopped into Rovman Powell’s hands at midwicket.
Mohammad Nabi ended the powerplay with an 18-run flurry against Avesh Khan’s first over, but at 45 for 3, the damage at the top was already telling.
Tilak Verma , Nehal Wadhera lead counter-attack amidst Yuzvendra Chahal’s historic 200th IPL wickets.
Only two bowlers in the history of T20 cricket had previously taken 200 wickets in a single competition – Danny Briggs and Samit Patel, both in the T20 Blast. With his extraction of Nabi in his first over of the night, Yuzvendra Chahal became the third entry on that list, and against Mumbai too – the team for whom he had made a one-off, wicketless debut in his maiden IPL season in 2013.
The moment arose with another cunning piece of bowling, as Nabi, on 23, closed the face on the front foot to lob a leading edge back to the bowler, off his third delivery. Chahal sunk to his knees as his team-mates engulfed him, fully aware of the feat of excellence and endurance that he’d just recorded. And, at 52 for 4, Mumbai were on their knees too.
Measured at first – particularly while R Ashwin was rattling through four wicketless overs for 31 – and then with mounting assurance, Mumbai’s revival was entirely down to two of the younger men in their ranks. Tilak led the line with a combative 65 from 45, bringing up his fifty with a six that also made him, at the age of 21 years and 166 days, the third-youngest player to 1000 IPL runs.
However, it was the less heralded Wadhera, playing his first match of the season, who provided the impetus that met the needs of this extraordinarily high-scoring edition. His 49 from 24 balls included three fours and four sixes – two of them in consecutive balls from Chahal, who moments earlier thought he had managed to trap Tilak lbw for 55 on the reverse-sweep.
DRS, however, showed the ball to be missing off, and the pair celebrated the reprieve with the verve of a century, which spoke volumes for the importance of their stand. But, as it turns out, their alliance would end on 99 from 54 balls when Boult was recalled to the attack for his final over. His first delivery was a slower-ball bouncer, which Wadhera could only lob to backward point.
Sandeep Sharma applies the gloss finish as MI stumbles to 179 for 9 after 20 overs.
At 170 for 5 in the 18th over, Mumbai still had designs on a 200-run total, but Royals’ death bowlers had other ideas. Avesh was on the mark to pin Hardik Pandya lbw for 10 as he walked across his stumps, and after leaking just six runs, even with Tim David looking to cut loose, Sandeep Sharma snapped the innings shut.
Tilak’s excellent knock ended with a tumbling take from Powell at long-on, following which Coetzee’s first-ball launch picked out Shimron Hetmyer down the ground. David finally got the strike back with three balls remaining but he too picked out a boundary rider to make it three wickets in the over, and 5 for 18 all told for Sandeep Sharma.
Not only were they the best figures by an Indian bowler for Royals, Sandeep Sharma’s figures marked a triumphant return after an injury-plagued season – he had previously managed one wicket in two outings before a side strain had kept him sidelined for most of a month.
At the end of 16 overs, MI were 151/4 and the stage for a final push when Boult dismissed Wadhera. The final push never came as RR produce a death-bowling clinic. Avesh, who struggled all day, gave away just six runs for the wicket of Hardik Pandya in the 19th.
Sandeep Sharma then went one better in the 20th, dismissing Varma and Gerald Coetzee with scrambled-seam slower balls before Tim David swung a full toss to deep mid-wicket. Only 3 runs came off the final over as Sandeep Sharma ended with a sensational 5 for 18, a spell that included 13 dots. MI lost 4/28 in the final four overs to finish on 179/9.
Jos Buttler, Yashaswi Jaiswal break the chase open
In stark contrast to Mumbai Indians as well as their own PowerPlay record this season, Rajasthan Royals raced away to a dominant 61/0 in the PowerPlay, scoring as many as 11 boundaries. Both Jos Buttler and Jaiswal faced 18 balls each and scored 31 and 28 respectively. Their fast start forced Hardik Pandya to bowl two overs of Bumrah in the PowerPlay but the batters navigated those to pick up 11 runs.
After two double-centuries and more than 700 runs in a startling Test campaign against England, Jaiswal’s IPL had been something of a comedown – just 121 runs and a top score of 39 in seven previous knocks. But there’s never been any doubting his precocity, and when he did finally reach his first fifty of this campaign, the acclaim on the Royals bench was notable. They are already top of the table at the halfway mark, after all … if he is hitting his straps for the run-in, so much the better for their prospects of a second title.
Butterfingers MI as Jaiswal and RR cruise towards comfortable victory
When play resumed after a 30-minute rain break, Hardik had his two spinners, Piyush Chawla and Nabi, operating in tandem and hoping to cash in on their respective match ups. Chawla was successful when his flipper castled Buttler for a 25-ball 35. The veteran leg spinner should have also dismissed Jaiswal on 50 but Wadhera put down a fairly simple chance at long-off and also ended up pushing it for a six. That heralded a period of MI benevolence in the field coinciding with RR’s batting brutality.
Samson and Jaiswal struck a six each off Nabi before the RR captain was reprieved at long-on by David. Jaiswal upped the ante further, slamming Chawla for a six over long-off before taking on Bumrah in the pace ace’s belated third over.
A cruise to the finish with a century as Jaiswal form romps RR to seventh win in 8 matches.
The game was all but done at this stage with RR needing only 28 runs from the final 5 overs. The finish was all about Jaiswal and his century, which he achieved by cutting a single to sweeper cover off his 59th ball. It ended a sequence of low scores for the youngster and he celebrated with familiar gusto. Three balls later he cut a boundary to seal the deal.
By the end, it was as if he’d never been away. His innings was studded with eight fours and seven sixes, including the winning carve through point off Tilak with eight balls left unused. On his watch, Royals are four points clear at the top, and getting better with every outing
Presentations and Road Ahead
Hardik Pandya the loosing skipper said : We put ourselves in trouble early on. The way Tilak and Nehal batted – that was fantastic. I don’t think that when we lost a couple of wickets early we thought we would even reach 180. We didn’t finish well and that’s why we were 10-15 runs short. We had to keep it within the stumps (while bowling).
Early on in the powerplay, we gave a lot of width and I don’t think it was our best day in the field as well. Overall, we did not put the right foot on the park and eventually they outplayed us. After the game, it’s not the right time to go to the players, everyone is professional, they know their roles. What we can do is learn from this game and the mistakes which we have made, rectify it and make sure that we don’t make it.
Progression is very important. Within the team, individually, we will have to accept our flaws and maybe work on those. I don’t believe much in chip and chop, I like to back players and the focus would always be to play good cricket, sticking to our plans and making sure that we don’t make the basic errors. Cricket is simple, as long as we keep it simple, it’s nice.
Sanju Samson the winning skipper said : Credit has to go to all the players. Started well in the powerplay. In the middle, the left-handers played unbelievably. But the way we came back was where we won the game. Wicket looked a bit dry. But when lights come in, gets colder in the night, it gets better to bat in the second innings.
People are professional enough about what to do when they get a break. I don’t think he needs (advice from) anyone (Jaiswal). He’s very confident. Was about one game. Let’s see how the wicket is there (Lucknow) and let’s see how it goes.
Sandeep Sharma for his 5-fer gets the Player of the Match said : Got fit day before yesterday only. First game after fitness, feeling good. Pitch was on slower side and lower side, so my plan was to keep bowling variations and cutters. If you’re bowling in the end, you have to have big heart. Have seen in the IPL, bowlers are under the pump. Need to have big heart and keep executing plans. As you know, I went unsold two years ago. Came in as a replacement. So I’m enjoying every game.
Set a middling 180 for victory after a Mumbai Indians’ innings that owed everything to a 99-run fifth-wicket stand between Tilak Varma and Nehal Wadhera, Royals’ chase was signaled and sealed by Jaiswal, who had 31 from 18 balls prior to a 30-minute rain delay, before converting his first fifty of a difficult season into a towering 104 not out from 60 balls.
Jaiswal added 74 in eight overs with the in-form Jos Buttler, who made 35 from 25, and a further 109 in 65 with Sanju Samson, whose terrible reprieve on 19 by Tim David at midwicket was the moment all hope evaporated for Mumbai. By then, Jaiswal had also had a major let-off, on 50, when Wadhera at deep cover dropped a leading-edged swipe off Piyush Chawla over the ropes for six.
Mumbai’s performance was summed up by the deployment of their two outstanding bowlers of the campaign. After being riled by a first-ball slap for six, Gerald Coetzee bowled like the wind in his solitary powerplay over, visibly troubling Jaiswal with his 150kph-plus pace, in particular with a top-edged pull that flew over the keeper for four. Yet he was not given another over until Jaiswal was into the 80s, when he again got a well-set batter flinching, but by this stage the match was already lost.
And though Jasprit Bumrah bowled with his peerless verve up front, including a two-run first over to limit Buttler’s early intentions, he too was held back too late into the chase – and when he did return, his comeback over was not a success. A first-ball no-ball was followed by a second-ball wide on height, where upon Jaiswal swung the rolled-over free hit for six, en route to a 16-run over, Bumrah’s most expensive of a stellar season.
A five-for on return from injury for Sandeep Sharma, and a hundred from Yashasvi Jaiswal later in the evening. Those were two outstanding individual performances that contributed heavily to the win for RR who keep going from strength to strength. Today the decision at the toss worked in their favour as well, with MI opting to bat first. Samson, knowing the conditions, was happy with that result. And he’ll be a lot more happier with the overall outcome
Mumbai Indians have a four day gap before their next game against Delhi Capitals at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in the day game on April 27. The Royals play the evening game on that Sunday, away against the Lucknow Super Giants.