Clinical Gujarat hammer Mumbai by 55 runs

Gujarat lost Wriddhiman Saha cheaply for 4 as he was caught behind off Arjun Tendulkar. Hardik Pandya perished to Piyush Chawla for 13 off 14 balls. Chawla also dismissed Vijay Shankar for 19 off 16 balls. However, opener Shubman Gill (56 off 34), David Miller (46 off 22) and Abhinav Manohar (42 off 21) combined to lift Gujarat. Rahul Tewatia also played a fine cameo, smashing 20 not out off 5 balls.

In the chase, Mumbai never quite got going and lost half their side for 59 inside 11 overs. Rohit Sharma was caught and bowled by his opposite number Pandya for 2. Ishan Kishan (13) perished in his endeavor to take on Rashid Khan, who also trapped impact player Tilak Varma leg before for 2. Tim David (0) then fell to a low full toss from Noor Ahmad.

Suryakumar Yadav smashed a quickfire 23 off 12, but he too fell to Ahmad, giving a return catch. Nehal Wadhera smacked 40 off only 21 balls with the aid of three fours and three sixes to ensure Mumbai at least crossed the 150-run mark. For GT, Ahmad claimed 3/37, while Rashid and Mohit finished with two scalps each.

Speaking after the defeat, Mumbai Indians skipper Rohit Sharma expressed disappointment and said, “That’s a little disappointing, we had control of the game and the last few overs went for a few too many runs. Every team has different strengths, we have a good batting line up and we back ourselves to go out and get that target, today wasn’t our today.”

Admitting there was some dew, Rohit lamented that the batters did not bat long enough. He added, “There was some dew and we needed someone to bat a little deeper. We came pretty close in the last game while chasing 215 but we didn’t start well with the bat today and that is not the right thing when chasing 200+. Even in the last 7 overs we didn’t have many batters batting in the middle.”

–By A Cricket Correspondent