Gujarat Titans rose to the top of Indian Premier League with a thrilling three-wicket victory over Mumbai Indians on DLS method Tuesday.
In a game twice interrupted by rain, Gujarat reached the revised target of 147 for the loss of seven wickets of the final ball as Deepak Chahar couldn’t defend 15 runs.
Mumbai had earlier lost five wickets for 27 runs in the middle overs and was restricted to 155-8 with Will Jacks (53) scoring his first half-century of the season.
Gujarat with 16 points is at No. 1 ahead of Royal Challengers Bangalore on net run-rate while Mumbai is at No. 4 with 14 points as the battle for four playoff spots got intense.
“There was a little bit of chaos when we came in to bat after the rain,” Gujarat captain Shubman Gill said. “But always good to have a W (beside your name) after the match.”
When rain first interrupted the game, Gujarat was eight runs ahead on DLS before Mumbai stormed back through its pace bowlers when play resumed.
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Gujarat lost four wickets in space of 16 balls as Jasprit Bumrah clean bowled captain Gill (43) and Shahrukh Khan (6) to finish with 2-19.
Sherfane Rutherford smashed two fours and two sixes in his quickfire 28 off 15 balls but Trent Boult trapped him leg before wicket and Rashid Khan also fell lbw against Ashwani Kumar’s searing yorker before rain took the players off the field for the second time.
When play resumed for one last time well past midnight, Rahul Tewatia kept his cool against Chahar and smashed the fast bowler for a straight boundary off the first ball and Gerald Coetzee smacked a six over long off to bring down the target to four off three balls.
With scores leveled and two balls to go, Chahar had Coetzee holed out at mid-wicket and captain Hardik Pandya could have run-out Arshad Khan off the final ball, but missed the stumps as Mumbai’s six-match winning streak ended in the tournament.
“Fought well with the total we had,” Pandya said. “It was a game of margins. It was definitely not a 150-wicket. It was a 175-wicket, we were short by 20-25 runs.”
Earlier, Gujarat made amends of its three dropped catches inside the batting powerplay to contain Mumbai.
Jacks was dropped before he had scored and Suryakumar Yadav also got reprieve on 10 before scoring 35, his 13th successive score of 25 or more in T20 cricket. Both batters combined in a 71-run stand before Gujarat spinner Sai Kishore (2-34) and Khan (1-21) put the brakes in the middle overs.
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Yadav spooned an easy catch at mid-off as he tried to play Kishore inside out and Jacks holed out to Kishore at deep square leg as he tried to drill Khan on the leg-side.
Gill picked up three catches as Mumbai lost momentum after its two set batters got dismissed before Corbin Bosch made 27 off 22 balls and helped five-time champion to cross the 150-run mark in the final over.