Mumbai: Romario Shepherd’s 10-ball 39 not out outmuscled Tristan Stubb’s courageous 71 off 25 balls as Mumbai Indians (MI) ended their three-match losing streak in the Indian Premier League with a 29–run win against Delhi Capitals (DC) here on Sunday.
Conceding as many as 51 runs in the last two overs proved catastrophic for DC, whose bowlers remained wayward and batters lacked the spunk in the initial overs to go after MI bowlers, even though Stubbs went ballistic to make 25-ball 71 not out. Jasprit Bumrah 2/22 was the pick of the MI bowlers.
The right-handed Stubbs smacked as many as seven sixes and three fours but his effort could only reduce the margin of defeat for DC, who lost a flurry of wickets towards the end to finish at 205/8 in reply to MI's 234/5. Once again poor quality of domestic talent in DC set-up proved to be their undoing.
Save Abhishek Porel, none of the other young uncapped Indians have measured up.
While MI managed to open their account in the points table after three losses upfront, the win also helped them leapfrog both Royal Challengers Bengaluru and DC to jump to the seventh spot while also improving their NRR to -0.704.
On their part, a fourth loss in five matches resulted in DC slipping down to the bottom of the table and they now also have the worst NRR of -1.37 among all teams.
Shepherd hurt DC the most, clobbering four sixes and two fours off Anrich Nortje’s 20th over to collect 32 runs and returned with the ball to get the prized scalp of David Warner (10).
Later in the game, Shepherd was on the receiving end too, giving away 54 runs.
Shepherd’s onslaught featuring four sixes and three fours topped a collective effort which MI came up with in the first half of the game to register their highest-ever score at their home ground.
When DC started its chase, Prithvi Shaw came up with a 40-ball 66 with three sixes and eight fours but the asking rate kept soaring beyond its reach.
The No. 3 Porel hit a few attractive strokes but failed to make the most of a lifeline he got while batting on 30. The left-hander eventually perished for a 31-ball 41 with five fours, and following him back in the hut soon was captain Rishabh Pant (1).
DC’s lower order too cut a sorry figure with Axar Patel (8), Lalit Yadav (3), debutant Kumar Kushagra (0) and Jhye Richardson (2) falling in quick succession giving Gerald Coetzee, four wicket haul.
Earlier, MI batting unit fired in unison to post an imposing total.
Nortje’s final figures read a sorry 2 /65 in 4 overs. Ishant Sharma, in all likelihood, playing his last IPL edition, was taken for 40 in 3 overs.
Shepherd was last to join the party but seemed to have made the most of it, after Rohit Sharma (49 off 27 balls), Ishan Kishan (42 off 23 balls), Hardik Pandya (39 off 30) and Tim David (45 not out off 21 balls, 2 fours, 4 sixes) also made merry in batting-friendly conditions.
It was, however, a forgettable outing for Suryakumar Yadav, who perished for two-ball duck on his first game since mid-December last year.
But David’s fiery knock and Shepherd’s late fireworks ensured that they still had a huge total on board.
