Credit: X
Mumbai Indians pulled off a thrilling nine-run victory over the Punjab Kings at the Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium, Mullanpur in Chandigarh. With this victory, the five-time champions jumped to the seventh spot on the table while the Kings went down to the ninth spot with four points from seven games.
After losing the toss, Mumbai had a shaky start after losing Ishan Kishan cheaply. But rescuing MI, Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav stitched up an 81-run stand. The former Mumbai captain got out after scoring 36 in 25 balls while SKY continued his batting effort to end up with a 78-run knock. Supporting Surya, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya and Tim David played crucial cameos to post a competitive 192-run.
Then in the second innings, Mumbai continued this momentum as they picked up four quick wickets and reduced Punjab to 49-5. But coming out from this position, Shashank Singh and Ashutosh Sharma carried Punjab. Though Singh got out after a well-made 41, Sharma held one end up as made a blistering 61 in 28 balls which wasn't enough as Jasprit Bumrah and Gerald Coetzee picked up three wickets each to help Mumbai clinch the win.
Talking about this defeat, PBKS captain Sam Curran said, "Another close one, I think this team likes a close one, but unfortunately another loss. Another incredible knock from the young guy (on Ashutosh), but another close loss. It's very tough, you want to lose close games rather then getting absolutely thumped, but we've lost a lot of wickets at the start, the way the younger guys have taken the team so close is heartening (on Shashank Singh and Ashutosh Sharma)."
"They have incredible confidence, you see a guy like Ashutosh having the confidence to play the sweeps and the big hits against pacers, it's so great to watch them in action. It's disheartening to lose close games, but there are a lot of positives in this team. We still have the belief in us, we believe we can turn this around, the sun will come up tomorrow and we will hopefully get on a winning run."
