Clinical Mumbai Indians swat aside Sunrisers Hyderabad to storm into top-four

Mumbai Indians are purring again. The five-time champions have gone W W W W to shrug off their slow start to storm into the top-four. The last of those Ws has come at the home of last year’s finalistsSunrisers Hyderabad, whose batting continued to deflate them. Heinrich Klaasen put out the early fires and scored 71 (44) but his singular effort was not enough to defy the visitors, who chased down SRH’s 143/8 in the 16th over, through a masterful 70 (46) from Rohit Sharma. This was SRH’s third home defeat of the season.

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Where the game was won?

SRH were inferior across phases but the PowerPlay was the most damaging. Their batters were devoid of confidence and accumen to deal with two smart swing bowlers in Deepak Chahar and Trent Boult, and had to play catch-up after losing four early wickets. MI in contrast, flew off the blocks to smash more than double of what SRH got in the PowerPlay, and set the chase up.

Sunrisers Hyderabad

PowerPlay: Worst start of the season for SRH

Phase score - 24/4 [RR: 4.00, 4s/6s: 1/1]

Sunrisers endured another shocking start to a game. Travis Head exited the scene in just the second over for a four-ball duck as Boult got one to shape away from the left-hander and induced a miscue that went to Naman Dhir at deep backward point. Abhishek Sharma calmed the nerves momentarily with a six in the same over, but more chaos ensued. In the following over from Chahar, Ishan Kishan walked off after assuming that he’d edged one behind down the leg side, even as the MI players weren't sure of appealing or considering a review. There was a nice moment where Hardik Pandya patted Kishan for doing what he did, but moments later, replays showed that there was no nick. SRH crumbled further in the next over off Boult as the New Zealander disguised a knuckle ball at Abhishek, who went through with his shot and found the cover fielder. Nitish Reddy’s horror season continued as he found Mitchell Santner at mid-on while trying to hit over the infield, giving Chahar his second wicket. Heinrich Klaasen and Aniket Varma dragged SRH to 24/4 in six overs - the team’s worst PowerPlay score of the season.

Middle-overs: Heinrich Klaasen leads the fight