NEW DELHI: Rajasthan Royals solidified their position at the top of the points table with a commanding nine-wicket victory over Mumbai Indians and made their final group stage game at the Sawai Man Singh Stadium a memorable one on Monday.
Rajasthan also did the double over Mumbai this season, preserving their home win record against Mumbai that stretches back to 2012 and still have just one loss from eight matches now.
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Rajasthan might have felt they let Mumbai get a few too many runs after picking up 4 wickets early but those two final overs from Avesh Khan and especially
Sandeep Sharma
got the momentum back in their favor.
The opening duo out of which only
Jos Buttler
had really fired so far was on a roll as
Yashasvi Jaiswal
seemed to be at his best. The pair scored 61 runs in the first 6 overs before rain interrupted play and soon enough after the break, Buttler fell with the score being 74.
Jaiswal though continued to find the fence and skipper Sanju Samson supported him brilliantly as the pair went on to put on 109 unbeaten runs and sealed the deal for the home side. Jaiswal went on to score a stellar hundred making it three games in a row where a Rajasthan batter has scored a century.
Jaiswal became the first player to score two centuries in IPL before turning 23 and both of his hundreds have come against Mumbai Indians.
Mumbai continued their erratic season with another erratic performance and this is a team that seems to be lacking rhythm and can't string together multiple wins which is very crucial in order to qualify for the playoffs.
The five-time champions failed to take wickets in the Powerplay and neither could they keep the scoring rate down. Piyush Chawla was the pick of the bowlers and the only wicket-taker as well. Mumbai dropped multiple chances in the field which was uncharacteristic of them.
Jasprit Bumrah
as usual bowled well but he too got hit in his final two overs. Nuwan Thushara couldn't impress on debut either and the likes of Gerald Coetzee, Mohammad Nabi and
Hardik Pandya
couldn't make much of an impact.
Earlier, Hardik Pandya won the toss and had no hesitation in batting first. Mumbai had a few things going for them coming into this game and one of them was certainly their opening partnership but neither
Rohit Sharma
nor Ishan Kishan could do any damage and then Suryakumar Yadav also got out pretty early.
Yuzvendra Chahal dismissed Mohammad Nabi to become the first bowler to complete 200 wickets in the history of the IPL.
Once Nabi got out, they seemed in a lot of trouble but Tilak Varma and Nehal Wadhera pulled off a heists as they added 99 runs and went on to score twin fifties. Neither could stay on till the end and Mumbai only managed to score 9 runs in the final two overs.
For Rajasthan, Sandeep Sharma returned from injury and made an instant impact with a couple of early wickets and even closed out the innings with 3 more wickets in the final over.
The spinners weren't quite effective with Trent Boult bowling decently and Avesh Khan making amends at the death after an expensive start.
Rajasthan hardly broke a sweat chasing down 180 runs and extend their lead at the top of the table.
Sandeep Sharma was adjudged the Player of the Match for his five-wicket haul, 5/18, the best figures of the season so far.
Rajasthan made it 7 wins out of 8 and move on to 14 points and are just a win away from 16 points, a number that has ensured qualification for the playoff in every single season so far and they still have 6 more group games to play.
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