MI beats RR by 8 wickets

KATHMANDU, October 6: Nathan Coulter-Nile and Jimmy Neesham ran riot with the ball while Ishan Kishan set the stage on fire with a quickfire 50* Mumbai Indians’ (MI) secured a dominant eight-wicket win over Rajasthan Royals (RR) in Match 51 of the VIVO Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 in Sharjah on Tuesday.

While Coulter-Nile picked four wickets, Neesham scalped three wickets as MI restricted RR to 90/9 and then chased down the target in overs to seal their sixth win of the season.

In the chase, MI captain set the ball rolling, creaming a four and a six in the first over and then added one more maximum to his account in the third over. However, Rohit got out in the fourth over as Chetan Sakariya gave RR their first breakthrough.

Suryakumar Yadav announced his arrival, hitting a first-ball four before he and Ishan Kishan, who earlier completed 1000 IPL runs for MI, hit three fours in the fifth over. While MI moved past fifty in the final over of the powerplay, they lost to Suryakumar.

Ishan cut loose and did so in some style. The left-hander hammered a four and two sixes in the 8th over and then added a four and six more to his account to notch up his fifty and a sensational win for MI in 8.2 overs.

Earlier, RR and MI, who elected to bowl, made two changes to their teams. While RR brought in Shreyas Gopal and debutant Kuldip Yadav in place of Mayank Markande and Akash Singh, MI picked Ishan Kishan and Jimmy Neesham in place of Quinton de Kock and Krunal Pandya.

While Yashasvi Jaiswal and Evin Lewis made a brisk start, Nathan Coulter-Nile struck in the fourth over and dismissed Jaiswal to give MI their first breakthrough. Jasprit Bumrah then had the better of Lewis in the final over of the powerplay before Neesham got two wickets in quick succession, getting Sanju Samson and Shivam Dube out.

Coulter-Nile then dismissed Glenn Phillips as MI reduced RR to 50/5. Rahul Tewatia and David Miller added 21 runs together. But MI ran through the RR lower middle-order and restricted them to 90/9.