Mishra’s four-wicket haul powers Delhi to six-wicket victory over Mumbai

Leg-spinner Amit Mishra’s outstanding bowling figures of 4/24 followed by Shikhar Dhawan’s crucial knock of 45 from 42 balls helped Delhi Capitals seal a six-wicket victory over Mumbai Indians with five balls to spare in an Indian Premier League (IPL) match at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on Tuesday.

Riding on Amit’s magical bowling, DC restricted MI to 137/9 in their 20 overs and overhauled target for the loss of just 4 wickets in 19.1 overs.

The win put DC second on the points table, just behind Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). While both teams have six points, RCB is ahead on net run rate.

It was a total that was too low for MI to defend as Shikhar Dhawan’s 45 (42 balls, 5x4s, 1x6) and Steve Smith’s 33 (29 balls, 4x4s) DC innings after the early loss of Prithvi Shaw.

Dhawan and Smith added 53 for the second wicket before the India left-hander was joined in by Lalit Yadav (22 off 25 balls).  The two Delhi lads added 36 for the third wicket to put DC on track.

The MI bowlers, who conceded three no-balls in the last two overs, tried hard to make a match of it and took the match till the last over but the batting failure weighed heavily on them.

The MI batsmen were, earlier, looking good but the advent of Amit saw them lose track.

The leg-spinner, who is playing his second game of this season, removed skipper Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya, both caught in the deep as well as Ishan Kishan, who was bowled and Kieron Pollard, who was out leg-before wicket.

MI, who lost Quinton de Kock early to Marcus Stoinis, were looking good at one stage as Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav added 58 for the second wicket. However, Yadav’s dismissal off the bowling of Avesh Khan triggered a collapse.

Mishra then got into the act as MI lost four wickets, including three to Mishra, while adding just eight runs. Both Sharma and Hardik fell in the space of three balls.

Krunal Pandya was bowled by off-spinner Lalit Yadav.

The wickets pegged MI back as they tried to stage some recovery with Kishan and Jayant Yadav. However, Mishra removed Kishan, yorking him, and soon Jayant was caught and bowled by Kagiso Rabada.

While Amit took four wickets, pace bowler Avesh took two for 15 in two overs while Rabada and Lalit Yadav picked a wicket each.

MI skipper Sharma blamed yet another below par show by his team’s batsmen.

“After the start we got, we should have batted better in the middle overs. It is happening time and again. We aren’t able to capitalise on our starts and we need to understand that as a batting unit,” said Sharma after the match.

MI have struggled in the middle overs of the previous matches also but their bowling as well as rash batting from their opposition had helped them win two of the last three matches.

Sharma, however, refused to blame dew.

“Dew isn’t the factor. We need to play smart cricket to win games which we didn’t do today. We knew dew would come in but we have seen that it’s not all that difficult to grip the ball in the last few games,” he said.

DC batsman Dhawan, who scored 45 to top-score in the match, said dew did play a role.

Agencies

Brief scores: Mumbai Indians 137/9 in 20 overs (R Sharma 44, I Kishan 26, S Yadav 24, A Mishra 4/24, A Khan 2/15) lost to Delhi Capitals 138/4 in 19.1 overs (S Dhawan 45, S Smith 33, L Yadav 22 not out, S Hetmyer 14 not out)