 "SRH vs MI: Boult and Chahar finally click as a powerplay pair as Mumbai Indians continue to make great strides")
It’s been five years since Mumbai Indians won the last of their five titles. And for a fanbase that had become used to watching their side lift the Indian Premier League (IPL) every alternate season, that sure would feel like an eternity.
What made things worse during this time period was them finishing at the bottom of the table, something that had not been associated with MI until 2022. And not once, but twice, with the team pulling off an encore last year in Hardik Pandya’s first season in charge.
MI, however, appear to finally be performing like MI of the old this season, and that includes the franchise’ trademark slow start to a season followed by a mid-season comeback. Pandya and company are very much in the second phase at the moment, having collected four wins on the trot after losing four out of their first five in the 18th season.
That includes two wins against Sunrisers Hyderabad in a space of a week, the second one coming at Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on Wednesday.
The latest match of the ongoing IPL season witnessed a couple of fiery 70s – by Heinrich Klaasen (71) and Rohit Sharma (70), one steering his team towards a respectable total and the other setting up another comfortable chase.
SRH vs MI Stats | Rohit completes 12,000 T20 runs; Bumrah grabs 300th wicket in format
While Klaasen finally brought up a half-century this season after a series of 30s, Rohit scored a match-winning fifty for the second time in as many games.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsKlaasen’s blazing knock and his 99-run partnership with ‘Impact Player’ Abhinav Manohar should have ideally had SRH staring at a total in the range of 180-200. Instead, the home team could not even cross 150 in the end, finishing on 143/8, with MI easily chasing the target down with more than four overs to spare .
Boult and Chahar effectively seal the contest in the SRH powerplay
The primary reason why Mumbai were able to overpower Hyderabad a lot more easily on Wednesday than in their previous encounter at the Wankhede was the way Trent Boult and Deepak Chahar operated in the first six overs after MI invited SRH to bat.
The two powerplay specialists hadn’t quite clicked as a pair this season, and were prone to leaking runs aplenty, especially during the first half of the season in which Mumbai had lost two games on either side of their eight-wicket thrashing of Kolkata Knight Riders at the Wankhede.
SRH openers Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma, a.k.a. ‘ Travishek ’, were able to steer the ‘Orange Army’ past the fifty mark inside seven overs with the latter moving to 40 before getting dismissed by Pandya.
On Wednesday, however, the two collected a couple of wickets each in a space of five overs to reduce the Sunrisers to 13/4. Chahar began to build pressure from the word go with just two runs coming from the first over. Head, looking to take the attack to Boult in the following over, cleared his front foot and swung his bat, only for the ball to lob over to Naman Dhir near deep backward point off the toe end.
Ishan Kishan’s dismissal was nothing short of a brain-fade on the wicketkeeper-batter’s part, with some questionable umpiring. Chahar strangled him down the leg side, and neither the bowler nor the keeper or any of the other fielders appealed for caught-behind.
The umpire, though, partially raised his finger, almost as if to suggest to the bowler that he might be missing out on something, before making the full signal following a faint appeal. Even more perplexing was the fact that Kishan started walking back to the dugout on his own, despite subsequent replays showing no contact between bat and ball.
Fairplay or facepalm? 🤯
— Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) April 23, 2025
Ishan Kishan walks... but UltraEdge says 'not out!' What just happened?!
Watch the LIVE action ➡ https://t.co/sDBWQG63Cl #IPLonJioStar 👉 #SRHvMI | LIVE NOW on Star Sports 1, Star Sports 1 Hindi & JioHotstar! pic.twitter.com/bQa3cVY1vG
The mood in the SRH would become even more sombre in the following over after Abhishek, who had struck Boult for a six with a lovely flick in the same over as Head’s dismissal, steered a full, wide delivery straight to Vignesh Puthur at point to depart for a run-a-ball 8.
By the time Nitish Reddy chipped the ball straight to mid on to give Chahar his second wicket, SRH had lost their top four with a little more than 10 runs on the board. Chahar would bowl his full quota of overs in one go, signing off with figures of 2/12 from four, while Boult bowled the 15th and the 20th overs, striking twice in the latter to finish with a Player of the Match-winning haul of 4/26.
For a team that is already short on confidence, losing a couple of wickets inside the powerplay can be detrimental to their hopes of posting a competitive total on the board. However, to be in the position the found themselves in in their fifth over is nothing short of a death knell.
And while Klaasen and Manohar’s contributions did restore some respectability in SRH’s batting performance on Wednesday, all it effectively did was to just make MI work slightly harder for what was to be a comfortable victory.
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