Mumbai Indians pulled off an immensely important win as they beat Punjab Kings by 6 wickets. This was a must-win kind of a match for both the teams for their race to qualify for the top 4.
Mumbai Indians won the toss earlier and opted to field first. They dropped young Ishan Kishan for this match and gave Saurabh Tiwari an opportunity. Mayank Agarwal did not feature for Punjab Kings because of back stiffness.
Punjab kings started slowly with KL Rahul and Mandeep Singh opening the batting. Mumbai started off with spinner krunal Pandya instead of Boult today. He bowled decently in the powerplay and took the opening breakthrough of Mandeep. Pollard was brought into the attack and immediately gave returns as he claimed 2 wickets in the first over of the big hitters’ Gayle and Rahul. Aiden Markram stitched a very important partnership along with Deepak Hooda as the Punjab Kings scored 135 runs in 20 overs.
In the second innings, the famed Mumbai opening pair of Rohit Sharma and De Kock failed as Ravi Bishnoi broke through the Mumbai batting gates. He took the all-important wickets of Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav in back-to-back deliveries as he made batting hell. Saurabh Tiwari made total use of the opportunity provided to him as he scored 45 runs when wickets were falling at regular intervals. Hardik Pandya finally found his form as he came and finished the game as he played sensibly and adapted to the situation presented to him. He along with Pollard finished the game and took Mumbai home.
Kieron Pollard was awarded the man of the match award for his all-round performance with the bat and ball.
