IPL 2017 | Jaydev Unadkat seals a thriller for Rising Pune Supergiant

Brief scores : Rising Pune Supergiant 160/6 (Rahul Tripathi 45, Ajinkya Rahane 38; Jasprit Bumrah 2/29, Karn Sharma 2/39) beat Mumbai Indians 157/8 (Rohit Sharma 58, Parthiv Patel 33; Ben Stokes 2/21, Jaydev Unadkat 2/40)

Rahane and Tripathi were timing the ball beautifully from the off and with the help of a few early boundaries, Pune found themselves at 31/0 after four overs And the duo could seemingly do no wrong as Pune coasted to 48 for no loss at the end of the powerplay. Despite shuffling their bowling pack, Mumbai were unable to find a breakthrough, until Karn Sharma caught Rahane off his own bowling in the 10th over, and had Tripathi caught on 45 by Kieron Pollard.

He could have even have had Smith’s wicket off the very next ball but Harbhajan Singh dropped a sitter on the square-leg boundary to leave Pune at 100/2 after 12 overs, and poised for a big total. But Harbhajan had the last laugh by cleaning up the Pune skipper in the very next over for his 200th IPL wicket, before Dhoni and Stokes steadied the innings to leave Pune at 120/3 with four overs to go. However, thanks to some tight bowling from Mumbai, Pune never got any momentum to their innings and Mitchell Johnson cleaned up Stokes with three overs to go, before Jasprit Bumrah did an encore to sent Dhoni packing in the next over to deepen Pune’s woes. In the final over, despite Manoj Tiwary crashing consecutive boundaries off the first 2 balls, Bumrah trapped him LBW as Pune finished their innings at 160/6.

Mumbai started their chase with Parthiv Patel doing most of his scoring in boundaries and after 3 overs Mumbai were going at a run rate of 9, having scored 27 runs. Ben Stokes got Pune a much needed breakthrough when he dismissed compatriot Jos Buttler with a slower ball in the 5th over and also ended with a maiden maiden over. But despite the loss Mumbai managed to reach 44/1 at the end of the powerplay. Daniel Christian removed the dangerous Nitish Rana with a short ball in the 8th over and Parthiv Patel had his furniture disturbed by Washington Sundar in the next over and suddenly Pune were back in the game. And at the halfway stage, the game was beautifully poised with Mumbai at 68/3, still needing 93 runs to win. Pune made further inroads into Mumbai’s batting after Stokes cleaned up Karn Sharma in the 12th over, one over after Manoj Tiwary dropped him off Tahir’s bowling.

After a missed run-out where Rohit Sharma was stranded by nearly half a wicket, the Mumbai Indians captain began to cut loose, perhaps sensing that Pune were smelling blood and trying to dispel the pressure. A maximum and a boundary off Tahir, and another boundary off Stokes, who had been Pune’s most dangerous bowler so far kept Mumbai in the hunt, requiring 48 off the last 5 overs. Just as Pollard and Sharma were putting together the winning partnership, Pollard lost out when he held out to Steve Smith at long off, who had to ran a mighty distance to take the catch.

With three overs to go, Mumbai needed 35 more to win, and Sharma brought up his 50 in the same over, before Pandya switched gears smashing consecutive boundaries off Jaydev Unadkat which meant Mumbai needed 24 from the last two overs. Stokes hit back, giving away just 6 overs in Pune’s penultimate over, and the pressure paid off, as Pandya got out to a blinding catch by Stokes off the first ball of Unadkat’s last over. Rohit Sharma rallied with a huge six, but it was too little, too late as he and McClenaghan got out on consecutive balls, and even Bhajji’s final ball maximum couldn’t get them over the line as they fell just 3 runs short of Pune’s score.