It might be a late dawn, but there’s some light left yet in five-time champions Mumbai Indians 2022 IPL campaign. Playing against the top-ranked Gujarat Titans, Rohit Sharma and co. registered a tight 5-run win to give the MI paltan something to cheer about.
The Titans looked well in course to chase down 178 thanks to a strong opening partnership from Wriddhiman Saha (55 off 40) and Shubman Gill (52 of 36). But a series of lose dismissals from GT’s middle-order batters came back to haunt them in the end.
Sai Sudharsan gets out hit-wicket off Kieron Pollard’s ball
One of the aforementioned dismissals was that of Sai Sudharsan. The 20-year-old Tamil Nadu batter looked well set to hunt down the target with his captain Hardik Pandya, but an unfortunate hit-wicket dismissal robbed him off the golden chance.
Batting against Kieron Pollard in the 16th over of the chase, Sudharsan attempted to cleave one delivery over the leg-side. Pollard’s height, however, gave the ball just that extra bit of bounce that completely flummoxed the Southpaw. In the process, Sudarshan ended up swinging into thin air and lost his balance to the point that his bat crashed round into the stumps.
What’s more, this unfortunate dismissal put Sai Sudharsan’s name as the 14th player in IPL history to have gotten out hit-wicket. Here’s how it happened in real time:
https://twitter.com/jemi_forlife/status/1522627553378271232?s=20&t=mH4-NZjNdtjFxYqi6jQCIQ
Match Summary
Following Sudarshan’s wicket, the Gujarat batting line-up entered into a self-distruct mode, as captain Hardik and Rahul Tewatia managed to run themselves out in the most unspectacular of fashions. The equation came down to Gujarat needing 9 to win off the last over; and that’s where Daniel Sams managed to spectacularly redeem himself and fetched Mumbai their second win of the season.
Brief scores: Gujarat 172/5 (Saha 55, Gill 52, Rashid 2/24) lost to Mumbai 178 (Rohit 45, Tim David 44*, M Ashwin 2/29) by 5 runs.