IPL: Windies wallop

Hyderabad: The Sun flattered to deceive. After having shone brightly for more than half the duration, it just nose-dived to plunge Hyderabad into darkness.

Chasing Mumbai’s lowly 136, the hosts committed hara-kiri after the departure of established openers David Warner and Jonny Bairstow — who both fell in the space of three balls with the score reading 33 — to fold for 96 and lose by 40 runs on Saturday.

West Indian quick Alzarri Joseph, who replaced Lasith Malinga in the team, wrecked the Sunrisers with IPL’s best ever bowling figures of 3.4-1-12-6 (surpassing Sohail Tanvir  6/14 for Rajasthan Royals against Chennai Super Kings at Jaipur in 208) to be the joint hero with Kieron Pollard who played a blinder with the bat in the first half.

Pollard played a lone hand, pummelling an unbeaten 46 off 26 balls to lend some decency to the visitors’ total, which was tottering with only two overs left. The West Indian whacked two boundaries and five sixes as he went after seamers Siddharth Kaul and Bhuvneshwar Kumar to take 39 runs off them. That was also the unfinished stand for the eighth wicket with No.9 Alzarri Joseph who did not get to face a ball.

The match began on a promising note. It was captain to captain as Bhuvneshwar opened the attack against Rohit Sharma, and almost nailed him. After four frustrating dot balls, Rohit survived a confident appeal/ referral for leg before and then Siddharth Kaul made a meal of a skier at third man.

Rohit made good use of the chance to send Sandeep Sharma for a six off the second ball of the second over. However, the Mumbai skipper was not quite in his elements — he played uppishly, goofed an attempted scoop and lived dangerously. The doom was impending and it was Deepak Hooda who brought it with a neat catch at mid-wicket off spinner Mohammad Nabi’s fourth ball, in the fourth over.

Suryakumar Yadav could not stick around and fell LBW for 7, a third-umpire referral too going against him as the Mumbai total read a tiny 30 for 2 after the Power Play period.

Soon it was 43 for 3 as opener Quinton de Kock hit Siddharth Kaul looping into Yusuf Pathan’s hands at deep square leg. The Pandya brothers did not last long either and two more wickets fell as the vistors slipped to 97 for 7 in the 18th over, staring down the barrel, when Pollard turned up the heat. Earlier, Mumbai Indians benched international Yuvraj Singh for Ishan Kishan while Alzarri Joseph came in for Lasith Malinga. The Sunrisers went with the same side that had defeated Delhi.