Mumbai Indians struggle against Hyderabad

Left-arm pacer Barinder Sran grabbed three wickets to lead Sunrisers Hyderabad’s impressive bowling display as they restricted defending champions Mumbai Indians to 142 for 6 in their IPL match here on Monday.

Put into bat, Mumbai found themselves in a precarious position as they were reduced to 60 for 4 in the 11th over and they made a brief recovery in middle overs only to fizzle out at the death on the face of some fine bowling by home side.

Sran (3/28) led the bowling charge while Bhuvneshwar Kumar (1/17 in 4 overs) and Mustafizur Rahman (1/32) gave able support to restrict Mumbai to a small total at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium.

The Mumbai innings was built around Ambati Rayudu’s 49-ball 54, which was studded with three fours and two sixes, and Krunal Pandya’s 28-ball unbeaten 49 (3x4, 3x6).

The duo stitched 63 runs for the fifth wicket to take Mumbai to a respectable total and hit 26 runs in the 14th over bowled by Bipul Sharma. Krunal struck three successive sixes while Rayudu got one maximum hit in that over.

It seemed that Mumbai would turn around after the tottering start and post a good total but the home side bowlers had a different idea as they bowled a tight spell in the death overs to restrict the visiting side to 142 for 6.

Earlier, Martin Guptill’s IPL debut match lasted just four balls as he was dismissed for 2 in first over bowled by Bhuvneshwar who extracted swing from the pitch early on. Parthiv Patel (10) was the next man out, cleanbowled by Sran in the fourth over after he smacked the bowler for two boundaries in that over, to leave Mumbai at 23 for 2. 1st innings report