Going into the finals of the tenth IPL; one wondered whether the law of averages would work in favour of Mumbai Indians or the Rising Pune Supergiants; RPS having got the better of MI repeatedly during this tournament, including the first qualifier when they beat MI to make it to the final. It was a low scoring match and at the half way stage no one would have predicted what a humdinger it would turn out to be! Check out some of the highlights of the IPL 2017 final between Mumbai Indians and Rising Pune Supergiants:
Winning the toss, Mumbai captain Rohit Sharma decided to bat first and try to get a good score on the board.
Openers Lendl Simmons (3 off 8) and the doughty Parthiv Patel (4 off 6) both departed early. Ambati Rayudu (12 of 15) and even skipper Rohit Sharma (24 off 22) failed to get in with a big innings. Jaydev Unadkat caught and bowled Simmons out in a simply stunning catch.
While Keiron Pollard went for 7 off 3, Hardik Pandya made 10 off 9, it was Krunal Pandya who played an outstanding innings in the circumstances: 47 off 38 with three boundaries and 2 heaves over the fence. Adam Zampa, Daniel Christian and Jaydev Unadkat took two wickets each.
Though opener Rahul Tripathi departed early, Ajinkya Rahane stayed on and played an excellent 44 run knock of 38 balls creating a valuable partnership with his skipper. Skipper Steve Smith did well to get to his 50 after a slow start and stayed till the final over. His 50 turned out to be in vain however.
Jaspreet Bumbrah bowled an outstanding 17th over to give only three runs under pressure and took a wicket as well; this brought Mumbai right into the match. It went down to the last over, where Mitchell Johnson managed to take two wickets and prevent RPS from winning. MI won on the last ball of the match by exactly one run!
Unadkat’s brilliant caught and bowled won him the Catch of the Match award. Krunal Pandya won the Maximum Sixes award as well as the Player of the Match awards. The stylish Player of the Match was Shardul Thakur.
The fantastic last ball finish could have gone either way, but in the end it was a supreme team effort from MI that won the day. Former Mumbai Indian Sachin Tendulkar was certainly delighted!
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