Nehal Wadhera’s 46 and Tim David’s late fire of 35 propelled Mumbai Indians to 144 for 7 against Lucknow Super Giants at Ekana Cricket Stadium, here on Tuesday
Lucknow came with a different bowling plan in the Powerplay overs against Mumbai, and it paid off well as Marcus Stoinis in his second over of the spell got rid of dangerous Suryakumar Yadav on the score of 10.
Earlier, Mohsin Khan dismissed skipper Rohit Sharma for four runs in the second over of the inning.
Tilak Varma got run out in the chaos of an lbw appeal by Ravi Bishnoi guiding the backward point, as he forgot about where the ball was. Then walked skipper Hardik Pandya in the crease. He got out for a first-ball duck. Mumbai were in serious trouble with 28 for 4 on the scoreboard in the powerplay.
Mayank Yadav, on return from injury bowled the seventh over of the innings and was a fairly long first over and got smoked for eight runs in the over. And once the field spread and LSG went to their spinners, it became harder to score boundaries for MI.
Five boundaries in eight overs and Kishan trying to go for more was out caught for 32 off 36. Ravi Bishnoi, nominally a leg spinner, took out another left-hander with his googly. Nehal Wadhera and Ishan Kishan added run-up ball 53 for the fifth wicket.
In the midst of a difficult time for Mumbai, Nehal Wadhera was leading Mumbai forward. He finished on 46 off 41. It was the kind of innings no batter wanted to play in T20s. Much of his acceleration was the result of him taking on Mayank. Their head-to-head was 21 off 12 with two fours and two sixes.
Mayank left the field due to injury with the figure of 1 for 31 in 3.1 overs. However, the nature of injury is still unknown.
Mumbai lost more wickets (4) than boundaries (3) in the powerplay. Four of those six overs went for a run a ball or less. Their top-scorer had to play an innings where he had to be 9 off 15, then 13 off 20 and finally 46 off 41. But they went to put 144 for 7 in 20 overs on the board as Tim David charged late and scored 35 in 18 deliveries including three boundaries and two sixes.
Brief score:
Mumbai Indians 144 for 7 in 20 overs (Nehal Wadhera 46, Tim David 35; Mohsin Khan 2-36, Naveen-ul-Haq 1-15) against Lucknow Super Giants