Mumbai Indians registered their first IPL 2024 win with a 29 run win over the Delhi Capitals in Mumbai on Sunday, April 7, 2024
After a good show by MI's batters, Jasprit Bumrah then turned on the screws to stifle DC and for MI to canter to victory.
The bowlers who impressed on a scorching Mumbai afternoon...
Jasprit Bumrah
Bumrah is a captain's bowler and when called upon he delivers!
Abhishek Porel and Prithvi Shaw were going great guns and were in control of the chase when Bumrah brought out his lethal toe-crushing yorker to have Shaw bowled all ends up for 68 to break the 88 run partnership.
In his next over he had the set Porel, who went after the full toss only to be caught at long on to become Bumrah's 150th wicket for Mumbai Indians.
Bumrah used his main weapon, his yorkers, to good effect. And that's not all, he used the slower ball brilliantly to trouble the batters and put the pressure on DC who at one point looking set to run with the game.
Bumrah finished with excellent figures of 2 for 22 off his 4 overs.
Gerald Coetzee
It wasn't the best of nights for the young South African who dropped Porel for 30 after he was taken to the cleaners by Porel and Shaw.
He gave 22 runs in his first two overs. But he struck in his 3rd.
Delhi needed 91 off the last 5 overs and with Rishabh Pant and Tristan Stubbs in the middle, DC always had a chance.
Coetzee ended DC's hopes when he had Pant holing out to Hardik Pandya at extra cover and just handing the match to MI.
Coetzee then finished with three more wickets in the final over, taking out Lalit Yadav, Kumar Kushagra and Jhye Richardson.
Axar Patel
There is a tendency for Axar Patel to fly under the radar even though he possesses a match-winners' attitude and a game to match.
On Sunday, Mumbai Indians's opening pair of Rohit Sharma and Ishan Kishan were going at over 12 runs an over, making the most of the Powerplay overs, hitting 75 runs off the first six overs.
Axar was summoned into action in the fifth over but was smashed for 14 runs. He stayed true to his reputation of being a partnership breaker, seeing the back of Rohit who was batting aggressively and closing in on a half-century.
Up until then, Axar was giving his deliveries flight, tossing them up and allowing the batters to take him on. Off the final ball of his second over, Axar decided to vary the pace. He bowled an arm ball, quicker and flatter, and on length. Rohit came down the track, missed the length and was bowled all ends up. Axar's strike halted MI's run rate, albeit only for a while.
And just when Hardik Pandya and Kishan were starting to wrest back control, Axar struck again to take out the set Kishan, who thumped the short ball back towards the bowler who stuck his left hand out and completed a good reflex catch. Axar got some stick and finished with figures of 2 for 35 off his four, but going by the situation in which he got those wickets, he was nothing short of impactful.
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