Mumbai Indians 160 for 5 (Kishan 48, David 34, Thakur 2-32) beat Delhi Capitals 159 for 7 (Powell 43, Bumrah 3-25) by five wickets
Ten balls. That’s all it took. Ten balls of carnage to end Delhi Capitals’ season and thrust Royal Challengers Bangalore into the playoffs.
Even in this atrocious season, Mumbai Indians managed to have a say in who would win the IPL.
The thought of him bowling in tandem with Jofra Archer next season is just bonkers.
Wankhede tonight was all about pace off the ball and even a hitter of Rishabh Pant’s repute was going at 10 off 15 and later 24 off 28. Rohit Sharma was worse: 2 off 13.
Capitals needed someone to defy the conditions just like Bumrah did and up stepped Powell. With the score at 50 for 4 in the ninth over, he understood that he needed to bat time. Then, after he had taken the time to assess the pitch, he took a calculated risk, targeting a fingerspinner who brought the ball into him. Shokeen was smashed for 20 runs in the 12th over.
This was a fine finisher at work, respecting the conditions when he needed to, and then winning a favourable match-up to bring his team back into the game. Powell made 43 off 34 balls, the best of those runs a pull for six off the virtually unplayable Bumrah.
At 5.1 overs, Capitals had a 57% chance of winning the game. At 5.2, when Rohit fell, that rose to 62%
At 11.2 overs, Capitals had a 43% chance of winning the game. At 11.3, when Ishan Kishan fell, that rose to 51%
At 14.2 overs, Capitals had a 69% chance of winning the game. At 14.3, when Dewald Brevis fell, that rose to 77%.
The bowlers did everything they could to keep them in the game. Then came 14.4. Thakur to David. 0 runs. It was a gorgeous ball. On the kind of length that batters don’t know whether to come forward to stay back. Kissing the pitch and whooshing through to the keeper.
The appeal was instant. Umpire Tapan Sharma was unmoved. Pant and Thakur got together. They spoke at length. Then they separated and all was good with the world until the replay came on the big screen and UltraEdge had a big spike as ball passed bat.