Hyderabad: Mumbai were supposed to have packed all the big guns. The Sunrisers sprang a surprise on them by unleashing a couple of Af-guns and called the shots on Monday night. They restricted the rampaging Rohit Sharma and Co. to a lowly 138 for 7 before making a mockery of that total for a seven-wicket win.
Enigmatic Afghan spinners Mohammad Nabi and Rashid Khan were the head-turners as they made the Blues twist, turn and dance to their tunes. The former returned with stunning figures of 4-0-13-1 while the latter came up with 4-0-22-1. Siddharth Kaul (3 for 24) and Bhuvneshwar Kumar (2 for 29) were the added ammunition that captain David Warner used to leave the opposition badly wounded. Barring Rohit’s 67, there was not one decent score on the Mumbai card.
The home side recovered from an early hiccup to ride on a 91-run partnership for the second wicket between Shikhar Dhawan (62, 46b, 4x4, 2x6) and Moises Henriques (44, 35b, 6x4) to wrap the match with 10 balls to spare.
Earlier, the hosts got off to a dream start as Nabi cleaned up the dangerous Lendl Simmons in the second over with the Mumbai total just 4. The West Indian went for a big hit only to miss the line and see his stumps shattered.
Warner then pressed in his fourth bowler in as many overs and it worked. The crafty Kaul rattled Nitish Rana with his first ball as the batsman ballooned a catch to Bhuvneshwar at mid-off. Mumbai 22 for 2. It could have been three-down next ball had Vijay Shankar at point snapped up a cut from Parthiv with the batsman on 10. However, that did not cost the Sunrisers much as the left-hander fell after adding 13 runs, holing out to Warner at long-on off Kaul.
Buoyed by the wicket, Kaul cranked it up, packing serious pace into his deliveries, one such rose sharply and hit Rohit Sharma on the head, the helmet saving him from injury, when the batsman was on 5 and the side’s total read 40 for 3. Rohit went for a hook, missed it and the ball looped all the way to the fielder at mid-off on impact, spurring the Sunrisers to go up in a strong appeal that was turned down by umpire K. N. Ananthapadmanabhan. Replays showed there was no bat involved.
With a poor 36 for 2 at the end of Power Play and a pathetic 59 for 3 at the half-stage, Mumbai were tottering when Rohit and Hardik Pandya stabilised the innings with a 60-run stand which was broken by Rashid -- Pandya out after a sedate, uncharacteristic 15 runs off 24 balls.
