Mumbai Indians made a grand recovery from a shock start through sparkling half centuries from captain Rohit Sharma and Evin Lewis to post a formidable 213 for six against Royal Challengers Bangalore in their Indian Premier League match at Wankhede Stadium on Tuesday.
Mumbai Indians made a grand recovery from a shock start through sparkling half centuries from captain Rohit Sharma and Evin Lewis to post a formidable 213 for six against Royal Challengers Bangalore in their Indian Premier League match at Wankhede Stadium on Tuesday.
Bangalore, after winning the toss and electing to bowl, got off to a dream start as Umesh Yadav took two-in-two. But then came the Mumbai recovery, Evin Lewis and Rohit Sharma joined forces and started the counter-attack.
They stitched a 108-run stand with Lewis scoring 65 off it. After losing Lewis, the home side did not put their foot down and the kept going after the bowlers. This time though it was Rohit Sharma who took every bowler to the cleaners and perished 6 short of a well-deserved ton.
After his dismissal, Rohit, who flopped in the first three games, took over the lead role to hammer 94 in 52 balls before departing off the penultimate ball, caught at long on. He smashed 5 sixes and 10 fours.
Social media couldn't stop praising hitman Sharma.
It was MI's first score in excess of 200 in four games this season.
All the RCB bowlers went for runs, including Umesh Yadav in his second spell. Spinners Washington Sundar and Yuzvendra Chahal were particularly expensive.
MI made a horrific start losing Suryakumar Yadav (0) and Ishan Kishan (0) off the first two balls from Umesh and rallied to 60 for two after six overs. Both were clean bowled by Umesh.
MI were rallied superbly by skipper Rohit and Lewis who put on 108 runs in 66 balls for the third wicket.
Lewis set the tone with a pulled six off Chris Woakes and then Rohit followed suit with a spanking drive for four to the first ball from Sundar who was then struck for two more fours to fine leg by Lewis.
The tall off-spinner also conceded five wides in the fourth over that yielded 19 runs.
Mohd Siraj was smacked for a huge six by Lewis off the first ball and 35 runs came off the fourth and fifth overs.
Lewis raced to his maiden half century off 32 balls with a slog-swept six off leggie Chahal and the momentum had swung firmly MI's way.
Chahal was then struck for two leg side sixes by Lewis who was later caught behind off a leading edge. Corey Anderson nipped the third wicket stand.
The run-rate dropped on Lewis's fall in the 12th over and then picked up when Rohit blasted Yadav for a six and a four in successive balls to reach his 50 in 32 balls in the 5th over.
The home team captain continued his splendid work till the last over, smashing Yadav and others mercilessly before being caught off Anderson with one ball to go.
(With PTI Inputs)
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 "Rohit Sharma")
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