Mumbai Indians 182 for 8 (Green 41, Naveen 4-38, Thakur 3-34) beat Lucknow Super Giants 101 (Stoinis 40, Madhwal 5-5) by 81 runs
Look out, Ahmedabad. Mumbai Indians are coming. The five-time champions put on a clinic to rout Lucknow Super Giants on Wednesday night and march into Qualifier 2. They are now two wins away from lifting a trophy they might soon trademark.
Akash Madhwal was the star of the show, picking up the joint-best figures by an Indian in IPL history - 5 for 5 in 3.3 overs. He might have taken more but Super Giants kept running themselves out in ridiculous ways. One was the result of a collision, it ended their best batter's stay at the crease, Marcus Stoinis gone for 40 off 27. Another had both players at the same end.
Super Giants fell from 74 for 3 to 101 all out in a chase of 183.
Mumbai's boundary bash
Mumbai do the little things right. They saw the opposition opening the bowling with spin and exploited the fact that only two men are allowed outside the 30-yard circle. Rohit Sharma and Ishan Kishan hit four fours in the first three overs - all just placed into gaps behind point and past fine leg because they knew that would be enough. These were the conditions that were supposed to stop the biggest hitters in the IPL. But they didn't. Mumbai cruised to 98 for 2, the third-highest 10-over score in Chennai this year. They hit 15 boundaries in this period.
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Naveen intervenes
Cameron Green and Suryakumar Yadav were not just clearing the boundary, they were spraying the second tier. This season, a few teams have experimented with three openers in their line-up. They come into play when there's an early wicket. They stay in the hut when there isn't. Mumbai are one of these teams and it helped them keep a very healthy tempo. They were on course to clear 200.
That's when Naveen-ul-Haq came on and did the simple thing right. At Chepauk, everybody needs to take pace off. Including the fast bowlers. After getting bashed for a first-ball six in the 11th over, he slipped in a legcutter to Suryakumar and had him caught on the straight boundary, and two balls later, an offcutter gripped in the pitch and bowled Green through the gate.
Naveen, the Afghanistan quick, celebrated each of his four wickets by putting his fingers in ears, perhaps a response to the hate he's received on social media for his part in the blow-up with Virat Kohli earlier in the tournament.
Tom Moody, however, isn't a big fan of bringing the Impact sub on the batting side
The impact of the Impact Sub
Mumbai had gone in a batter light in their bat-first XI. The logic was that if they needed the guy, they would sub him in for someone who was already dismissed.
Which is exactly what happened. Nehal Wadhera walked in as Suryakumar's substitute to face the last 21 balls of the innings.
If they hadn't needed him, they might have brought in an extra spinner to help defend whatever total they got. Mumbai kept both options open. It's a fun way to use the Impact Sub. It's not formulaic.
Wadhera played a massive role. He came in at a time when Mumbai had managed only 30 runs in the previous 4.2 overs. And he smashed 23 off 12, including two fours and a six in the final over.
Madhwal stands tall
Madhwal went to Mumbai for INR 20 lakh. Money extremely well spent.
He wasn't part of Plan A. An entire month had gone by before he played his first game, and there he went for 37 runs in three overs. Two of them were at the death.
Madhwal has bowled 129 balls this season. Fifty-one of them have been in overs 17 to 20. A rookie has been bowling 40% of his deliveries in the hardest phase of a T20 game while maintaining an economy rate of 7.5. Only one fast bowler has done better (min 18 deliveries) and he belonged to the opposition - Mohsin Khan.
Madhwal's biggest impact in this game, though, came in the middle overs when he picked up two wickets in two balls, including an absolute peach from around the wicket, angling into the left-handed Nicholas Pooran and nipping away off the pitch to have him caught behind.
Seventeen dots in 21 balls and five wickets for five runs. Nobody had done this much damage in the entire history of IPL playoff matches. Most teams wouldn't be able to recover from losing bowlers of the class of Jasprit Bumrah and Jofra Archer.
Mumbai aren't most teams.
