Mumbai strangle SRH at the death on sluggish Chennai pitch

The curse of the Chennai chase strikes again and for the second consecutive game, the Sunrisers Hyderabad have failed to chase down a 150 target after getting off to a flying start. Jonny Bairstow returned to the top of the order for SRH and made the most of the field restrictions and the hard new
ball to help SRH score 57 in the powerplay. Unfortunately for the Men in Orange, Bairstow was out in a wretched manner which eventually derailed their run chase. The Englishman trod on his stumps to be out hit wicket for 43 before David Warner ran himself out thanks to a wonderful piece of athleticism from Hardik Pandya.

The loss of both their star openers triggered a collapse for SRH and they went from being 90-2 to 137 all out to lose their 3rd consecutive game in the tournament. Their Indian middle order of Virat Singh, Abhishek Sharma and Abdul Samad failed to live up to their potential and Vijay Shankar ran out of partners at the end to hand Mumbai the victory. The reigning champions were elite with the ball towards the death overs and Jasprit Bumrah and Trent Boult stuck to their plans to make it incredibly difficult for the Hyderabad batters. Boult, in particular, was incredibly effective and bowled three searing yorkers to clean up the SRH tail.

In their batting innings, Mumbai scored 150 largely thanks to a wonderful cameo from Kieron Pollard. Rohit Sharma and Quinton De Kock got Mumbai off to a good start in the powerplay but the pitch slowed as the innings progressed and at one point Mumbai were on course for a below-par total. Pollard crucially changed the momentum of the innings by hitting two sixes off the final two deliveries to get Mumbai to 150 and give them a great chance of defending their total.

This is now the fourth game in a row that teams have struggled to chase at Chennai and the slowish nature of the pitch makes batting incredibly difficult towards the back end of the innings. Teams need to get off to a great start in the powerplay but more importantly, a set batter needs to bat through the innings and stay till the end like Kieron Pollard did today or Glenn Maxwell in the previous game. Unfortunately for Hyderabad, the wicket of Warner has been the turning point in both chases and it means the Men in Orange are still the only team without a victory in this IPL season.