The defending champions of the Indian Premier League, the Mumbai Indians, were all but knocked out of the tournament today after they lost their last league game against the Gujarat Lions by 6 wickets at the Green Park Stadium, Kanpur. With the victory, the Lions became the first team to qualify for the playoffs.
The only chance that Mumbai have of qualifying is if the Kolkata Knight Riders and the Delhi Daredevils lose their matches against the Sunrisers Hyderabad and the Royal Challengers Bangalore by heavy margins. Mumbai, then, would qualify ahead of Delhi and Kolkata on the basis of a superior run rate.
On the other hand, if both Kolkata and Bangalore win their respective games, both of them would qualify and Mumbai and Delhi would be knocked out. If Delhi beat Bangalore, the Daredevils would go through. The Sunrisers have already qualified for the knockouts irrespective of the result of their match against the Knight Riders tomorrow.
Batting first, Mumbai Indians registered a competitive total of 172/8 riding on Nitish Rana’s knock of 70 off just 36 balls with 7 fours and 4 sixes. However, their hopes of qualifying for the playoffs was dashed by the pair of Brendon McCullum and Suresh Raina, who combined after the early departure of Aaron Finch to take the game out of the hands of the two-time IPL champions in the first 10 overs itself, in which they accumulated 100 runs.
Although McCullum and Raina were sent back by Harbhajan Singh and Jasprit Bumrah, the damage had already been done, as the two of them had brought the run rate down to around 6 runs per over. The formalities were completed by Dwayne Smith who finished unbeaten on 29 runs from 17 balls.
The Mumbai bowlers had a torrid day in the field, as none of them could get their lines or lengths right and were taken for runs all around the ground. Bumrah and McClenaghan finished with economy rates of over 10 runs per over while Krunal Pandya went for 14 an over. Even the experienced Harbhajan could not stop the flow of runs and went for 36 runs from his 4 overs.
Here are some interesting stats from the game.
1- Gujarat Lions, with this win, have become the first team to qualify for the playoffs in the Indian Premier League 2016.
2- Number of ducks by Aaron Finch as an opener in this season of the IPL from three innings. He had scored half-centuries in his previous two outings as an opening batsman for the Lions.
4- Number of times the Lions have scored more than 70 runs in the powerplay overs this season. No other team has done it even once.
8-2 – The win-loss record of the Gujarat Lions while chasing targets in this IPL. While batting first, they have a win-loss record of 1-3. Mumbai have a similar record as well, 5-2 while chasing, and 2-4 while batting first. Gujarat now have the joint second-most number of wins while chasing in an IPL season.
25- The number of wickets that the Mumbai Indians have lost in the powerplays in this season of the IPL which is the highest amongst all teams. Delhi Daredevils have lost 22 wickets and they still have a game to go.
27- The number of runs scored by the Mumbai batsmen in the last 4 overs of their innings tonight. In the previous 6 overs, i.e. from overs 11th to 16th, MI had scored 73 runs while losing just one wicket.
73.07- This is the percentage of Nitish Rana’s runs that have come in boundaries this season. Out of 104 runs that he has scored, 76 have come in boundaries. This is the 3rd highest percentage among 36 batsmen who have got more than 100 runs this season.
100- The number of wickets taken by Vinay Kumar in the IPL, which the highest among Indian fast bowlers.
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