Mumbai: Punjab Kings had begun with a bang. Five losses in a row at the business end of the tournament later, they could very well find themselves stranded, in the race to the playoffs with CSK and RR, closely behind. The fifth of their losses came at their second home, Dharamsala, on Thursday to Mumbai Indians – out of the playoff race and therefore doubly dangerous. For MI, Tilak Varma 75* (33b, 6×4,6×6) anchored their successful run chase of 201 with a ball to spare.
Earlier, Prabhsimran Singh should not have made 57 runs. The PBKS opener could have been dismissed on 5 by an outstanding length ball from Jasprit Bumrah that caught his outside edge. The Mumbai Indians captain had even begun to celebrate, only to find Naman Dhir drop the catch at slips.
This was Dhir dropping eight catches in the season. No joy then for Bumrah on captaincy debut, the third leader the five-time winners had to employ, this year.
PBKS, though, shouldn’t have been able to reach 200. Batting first, their innings stuttered at 147/7 after 17 overs, having found no momentum. To try and arrest their losing streak, the home side knew they required more runs at Dharamsala. Shreyas Iyer had named Harpreet Brar as their Impact Sub choice at the toss. In the 17th over, they tweaked their plans and summoned Vishnu Vinod for some quick runs against his former team.
The obvious counter would have been for Bumrah to bowl his final over early to restrict the opposition to a below par score. Surprisingly, he preserved himself to bowl the 20th. 40 runs came in the 18th and 19th bowled by Deepak Chahar and Corbin Bosch. Coupled with some forgettable fielding lapses, MI’s poor show in the final three overs paved the way for Azmatullah Omarzai’s cameo – 38 (17b). Vinod 15* (8b) and Xavier Bartlett’s 18* (7b) late runs helped PBKS post a competitive 201. This undid a lot of the good work done by Shardul Thakur in the middle overs with a spell of 4-0-39-4.
In response, MI openers were chalk and cheese – Rohit Sharma 12* (15b), Ryan Rickleton 47* (21b) – in the Powerplay. At the mid-innings stage, they were both gone. MI needed 112 more from 10 overs.
A few more miserly overs saw the asking rate shoot up with MI now in need of 72 runs in 5 overs. That’s when Iyer trusted his best bowler of the day, Yuzvendra Chahal, to defy match-ups. Tilak Varma and Sherfane Rutherford took full toll to make it a 20-run over. Thereafter, Tilak was there, holding his nerve to complete the win. Will Jacks 25*(10b) played his part in the consolation win.