Mohali: With the help of an aggressive century partnership between Ishan Kishan (75) and Suryakumar Yadav (66), Mumbai Indians defeated Punjab Kings by six wickets in an IPL match on Wednesday. Sent in to bat first, Punjab Kings scored 214 for three with the help of Liam Livingstone’s unbeaten 82. In response, Mumbai achieved the target with seven balls to spare.
After this win, Mumbai moved to the sixth position with ten points from nine matches, while Punjab are seventh with ten points from ten matches. Mumbai lost the wicket of captain Rohit Sharma on the third ball of the innings, but recovering from this blow, Ishaan scored 75 runs in 41 balls with the help of seven fours and four sixes. At the same time, Suryakumar played an inning of 66 runs in 31 balls, which included eight fours and two sixes. Both added 116 runs for the third wicket.
Suryakumar returned in the 15th over by catching Arshdeep Singh off Nathan Ellis, while in the very next over Ishaan was caught by Arshdeep at the hands of Rishi Dhawan. After this, Tim David and Tilak Verma, playing the role of troubleshooters, took Mumbai to victory. David, who was the hero of Mumbai’s victory in the last match, scored 19 runs in 10 balls and Tilak scored 26 runs in 10 balls. Tilak took the team to victory by hitting Arshdeep for a six in the 19th over.
Earlier, Mumbai got off to a bad start as Rishi Dhawan got Rohit caught at short in the very first over. Cameron Green became the victim of Ellis after scoring 23 runs in 18 balls. The highlight of Punjab’s innings was Livingstone, who completed his first half-century of the season in 32 balls and remained unbeaten on 82 off 42 balls with the help of seven fours and four sixes. Mumbai captain Rohit Sharma had decided to bowl after winning the toss in his 200th match for Mumbai. Punjab’s wicketkeeper Jitesh Sharma scored an unbeaten 49 off 27 balls. Both added 119 runs in just 56 balls in an unbroken fourth-wicket partnership. Livingstone hit his England teammate Joffra Archer for three consecutive sixes in the 19th over.
Sharma did not spare anyone, spinner Piyush Chawla or fast bowler Archer. He hit five fours and two sixes in his innings. Archer gave 56 runs in his four overs and did not get any wickets. Mumbai gave 115 runs in the last 48 balls and for the fourth time in a row a team has scored more than 200 runs against them.
At one point Punjab’s score was 99 for three in 12 overs. Both took 21 runs in the 13th over by thrashing Archer fiercely. Archer, who returned from injury, was not in rhythm at all. After this Sharma also brought him a four. Chawla took the wickets of Shikhar Dhawan (30) and Matthew Short (27). Dhawan got a life on 23 but he could not take advantage of it. In the next ball, he again lost the wicket in an attempt to play a high shot.
