A resounding performance with both bat and ball helped Mumbai Indians leapfrog Delhi Capitals to the second place in the Indian Premier League (IPL). After choosing to bat first, our openers along with yet another late cameo by Hardik Pandya helped set a daunting target of 169 on a difficult batting surface at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in Delhi. The bowlers then did their bit with Rahul Chahar and Jasprit Bumrah picking up five wickets amongst them to help us to a thumping 40 run victory.

Delhi Capitals started off brightly in their chase, as the pair of Prithvi Shaw and Shikhar Dhawan put on 48 runs off the first six overs with the southpaw looking solid scoring five fours and a massive six. However, he was undone attempting a reverse sweep off Rahul Chahar only to end up chopping it back onto his stumps.

Dhawan’s wicket proved to be catalyst for a Delhi Capitals collapse, as the hosts lost Shaw, Colin Munro and Shreyas Iyer for a span of 14 runs with the MI spinners wreaking havoc. Chahar picked up three out of those four wickets and ended with a spell of 3/19.

The hosts tried rebuilding their innings with Rishabh Pant and Axar Patel, but our ace pacer Jasprit Bumrah got Pant bowled to swing the game strongly in our favour. Chris Morris and Axar Patel tried hard to rebuild the DC innings, but the asking rate was always going up due to the quality bowling performance by the Mumbai pacers.

Morris ultimately succumbed to the final delivery off the 16^th over by Lasith Malinga, getting caught in the deep by Pandya. Bumrah bowled the subsequent over, getting Keemo Paul run out off the first ball and then having Axar Patel bowled off the next as the visitors picked up three wickets off three balls. The Delhi Capitals tail played admirably to last the 20 overs, but it was the visitors who ended up on the right side of the result after a prolific performance with bat and ball.

Earlier in the innings, Mumbai Indians openers Rohit Sharma and Quinton de Kock got off to a solid start, scoring 57 runs off the powerplay. However, Amit Mishra managed to affect a breakthrough of his very first delivery as he dismissed Rohit and new man Ben Cutting was also sent packing the next over by Axar Patel.

Delhi Capitals also managed to get de Kock run out a few overs later as the score read 74/3 after 10 overs. The flurry of wickets managed to bring down our scoring rate temporarily, as new players Suryakumar Yadav and Krunal Pandya began rebuilding the innings without taking any untoward risks.

Yadav scored a valuable 26 before losing his wicket to Kagiso Rabada. However, out walked Hardik Pandya who yet again proved his mettle as he smashed the DC bowlers all over the park. The Pandya brothers together took the Delhi bowlers to the cleaners, scoring a gargantuan 65 runs off the last five overs. Hardik took on the role of the aggressor in that partnership, hitting a quickfire 32 off 15 balls as MI ended at 168/5 after their quota of 20 overs.

Brief Scores: Mumbai Indians 168/5 in 20 overs (Krunal 37*, Rabada 2/38) beat Delhi Capitals 128/9 (Dhawan 35, Chahar 3/19).

Man of the Match: Hardik Pandya

Our next game will be against Rajasthan Royals at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium on Saturday, the 20^th of April.