MI Smart Bowling- The Mumbai Indians (MI) defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) by four wickets after winning a crucial toss, taking advantage of the favourable conditions, and exploiting them brilliantly to win their third IPL 2025 match. At the Wankhede Stadium, they sent SRH in on an abnormally slow surface and held them to 162 for 5. With 11 balls remaining, they managed to hunt down their target with a little assistance from dew, but not enough to make a ball change.
In his sixth game with his new squad, Will Jacks, who had had a quiet start to the season, proved his worth and was MI’s greatest match-winner of the day. He had a significant innings of 36 off of 26 balls, but his offspin had an even greater effect. He finished with 2 for 14 in three overs, dominating SRH’s all-left-handed top three.
Even though MI lost their leg spinner Karn Sharma, who was Player of the Match in their most recent match against the Delhi Capitals, to an injury before he could bowl a ball, Jacks’ three overs allowed them to postpone using their Impact Player. Since MI didn’t have to replace him with a bowler, they were able to start their chase with Rohit Sharma, who provided them a boost with an early appearance. MI prevented SRH’s bowlers from ever getting a sniff thanks to the valuable contributions of Ryan Rickelton, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, and Hardik Pandya.
Nevertheless, MI’s bowlers prevailed in this encounter. Although Jasprit Bumrah was the finest, their other fast bowlers contributed to SRH’s restriction with a strategy that relied heavily on yorkers and slower balls on a pitch that occasionally made it appear hard to force the ball down the ground.
Because of this, even though Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head had a 59-run opening partnership and both had significant pieces of luck along the road, SRH was only able to score 162. Heinrich Klaasen, Aniket Verma, and Pat Cummins smashed the only five sixes of their innings in the 18th and 20th overs, scoring 21 and 22 runs, respectively, which helped SRH go that far.
Plenty of luck but no fluency for SRH
MI had a bad start to the contest in the opening over. The overhead opportunity exploded past Jacks’ hands at slip after Deepak Chahar found Abhishek’s edge first ball. At midwicket, Head made an uppish flick, but the ball missed the diving Karn.
Karn’s pointless dive also got him a split webbing, and the latter incident similarly occurred in the third over, this time off Abhishek’s bat. He didn’t come back to bowl after leaving the pitch.
In the tenth over, Head was caught on the square-leg boundary off a no-ball from Hardik, giving SRH another stroke of luck. The main story, however, was that Head was batting on 24 off 24 at the time, finding it difficult to timing the ball on a pitch that just wouldn’t come to the bat. After hitting 40 off 27 before getting caught on the point boundary off Hardik in the eighth over, Abhishek appeared to be a bit more fluid.
That wicket came shortly after Hardik pulled up in his follow-through with what appeared to be an ankle or left shin injury, which was another worrying moment for MI. He even appeared to signal his dugout to bring in a replacement, but he eventually picked himself up and carried on bowling.
Jacks attacks his match-up
While the sluggish, sticky conditions were a factor, MI’s bowlers also made excellent use of them; Bumrah stood out, conceding only 10 runs in his two powerplay overs. Despite not losing a wicket, SRH only managed to score 46 in the powerplay.
As soon as the powerplay was over, MI brought in Jacks, who started turning and gaining grip right away. Jacks delivered his first blow in the ninth over, spinning an offbreak sharply past the flailing bat of the charging Ishan Kishan to have him stumped after Hardik had broken the opening stand in the eighth over.
Head’s wretched stay was then terminated by Jacks, who changed ends to bowl the 12th over and caught him at long-off for 28 off 29 balls.
Klaasen, Aniket provide strong finish
All of SRH’s batsmen struggled for power down the ground, and Head’s dismissal—a failure to clear the straight boundary—was a recurring theme throughout the innings. From the ninth to the fifteenth overs, there were just four fours, and each one was hit behind the wicket. During the most of this time, Klaasen and Nitish Kumar Reddy batted, scoring 31 runs off of 33 balls.
Trent Boult’s three-run 17th over, which featured Reddy’s wicket when he was caught at long-on, left SRH at 115 for 4, with 140 appearing far off.
However, Klaasen, Aniket, and Cummins were able to finally end their sixes drought as they managed to gather 47 off the last three. Klaasen and Aniket displayed remarkable technique over the covers in two of the five sixes, but three of them came off hittable full-tosses. The final three overs included a total of seven full-tosses, indicating that dew could have begun to form.
But when Klaasen tried to make space, Bumrah, who bowls the most unhittable full-tosses in cricket, bowled him one of those full-tosses. Between costly overs from Hardik and Deepak Chahar, his 19th only managed four runs.
MI get home without major hiccups
Impact sub To give MI an early boost, Rohit took risks, had some luck (with an edged six over deep third), and smashed a few of his signature pulled sixes off his hip. Due to keeper Klaasen’s gloves getting in front of the stumps before the batter hit the ball, Rickelton struggled early on, got off to three consecutive fours off Eshan Malinga, and then had a strange bit of luck when he was caught in the covers off Zeeshan Ansari. However, an umpire’s review confirmed a no-ball. Shortly after, though, Rickelton was out after misfiring on a slower ball from Harshal Patel to backward point. However, the openers had combined to cut MI’s aim by 57 runs.
Then, Jacks and Suryakumar put up 52 for the third wicket in just 29 balls, forming the match’s pivotal partnership. They hit four sixes and a four in three overs from legspinners Ansari and Rahul Chahar – who came on as Impact Sub, replacing Mohammed Shami who still had an over of his quota remaining – who were still finding grip off this surface but ever so often erred in line or length.
MI needed 42 runs at less than a run per ball by the time Cummins broke this stand. After an odd 18th that saw Malinga take two wickets for only one run, Hardik sped them to victory with three fours and a six, including a spectacular back-foot blast past wide long-on off Cummins. They eventually reached home at the beginning of the 19th over.
