SRH survive Tim David onslaught to stay alive in the tournament

The Sunrisers Hyderabad live to fight another day in the Indian Premier League after narrowly beating the Mumbai Indians by three runs in a high-scoring thriller at the Wankhede Stadium. An incredible 76 off 44 from Rahul Tripathi set up the victory for SRH before Umran Malik and Bhuvneshwar Kumar starred with the ball to hand Mumbai their tenth defeat of the season.

After losing each of their last five games, the Sunrisers finally decided to shuffle their batting line-up against Mumbai, with Priyam Garg replacing the struggling Kane Williamson at the top of the order. The move immediately paid off for Hyderabad as they managed their best powerplay score of the season. Despite losing Abhishek Sharma early on, Priyam Garg and Rahul Tripathi went after the Mumbai new-ball attack, scoring 57 runs in the powerplay. 

The pair continued their assault once the field spread out as well, with Priyam Garg slog-sweeping Sanjay Yadav over square leg before creaming another couple of boundaries against Mayank Markande. Ramandeep Singh ended the 78-run partnership after taking an excellent return catch to dismiss Garg, but coming in at number four, Nicholas Pooran kept the runs flowing. The West Indian launched Riley Meredith for consecutive sixes before taking on Mayank Markande while Rahul Tripathi hit two fours and a six against Daniel Sams to take SRH to 164 for two in 16 overs.

Tripathi hit another six off Meredith to reach the highest individual score by an SRH batter this season (76), but MI hit back in the final four overs of the innings to contain what looked set to be a massive total. Riley Meredith and Ramandeep Singh combined to send back the two set batters, while Jasprit Bumrah bowled an economical seven-run final over to limit Hyderabad to 193 for six.

In response, Rohit Sharma and Ishan Kishan gave Mumbai a strong start, scoring 45 runs in their opening five overs and adding their fourth half-century partnership of the season. A chaotic opening over from Umran Malik, which went for 17, took Mumbai to 89 for no loss at the halfway mark, but the five-time champions temporarily lost their way after that, with four wickets falling for just 32 runs. Sharma holed out against Washington Sundar just two runs short of his half-century, while Umran Malik hurried Ishan Kishan, Daniel Sams, and Tilak Verma with his searing pace to leave Mumbai reeling at 127 for four.

Mumbai were on the ropes with 67 needed from five overs, but Tim David produced a stunning cameo to turn the game on its head. David smashed two fours and four sixes in Natarajan’s two overs at the death to bring the equation down to 19 of 13, but in another dramatic turn of events, the Australian was run-out off the final ball of the 18th while looking to steal a single. Bhuvneshwar Kumar bowled a stunning wicket-maiden in the penultimate over to kill the game, leaving Ramandeep Singh with too much to do off the last six balls as SRH closed out the win by three runs.