MI won by 4 wickets moved to 7th spot in IPL 2025 points table.
As his team defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) by four wickets in their IPL 2025 match on Thursday at the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai Indians (MI) captain Hardik Pandya praised his bowlers for skillfully employing variations and implementing strategies on a slow pitch.
MI finished at 166 for six in 18.1 overs after limiting SRH to 162 for five and chasing the mark with 11 balls remaining.
"I think the way we bowled today was very smart and spot-on. We stuck to simple, basic plans. Certain balls were not easy to hit. Credit to the bowlers, that we made them hit some good shots. We were kind of squeezing them," Pandya said at the post-match presentation.
"If you look at it, it had a nice green grass look to it. The first couple of overs that Deepak (Chahar) bowled, a couple of balls got stuck in. We decided to use change-of-pace balls. As soon as we figured it out, we tried to mix it up. We executed the yorkers very smartly well,” he added.
Will Jacks was Mumbai's breakout performer, recording impressive figures of 2/14 before smashing a quick 36 off 26 balls to help his club earn their second straight win of the season.
"That is the beauty of Jacks. He can be a gun fielder. Bowl those gun overs. Today it came off for him. When we needed 42 off 42, it was tricky. We wanted to take our time,” he added.
On the other hand, SRH captain Pat Cummins stated that his team couldn’t reach the competitive total that should’ve been made on that difficult pitch.
"It wasn't the easiest wicket. A few runs short, we would have liked a couple more with the bat. Tricky wicket, when you come here, you expect it to be really fluent and fast; it just wasn't that. They bowled really well and shut down a lot of our hitting areas. I thought we had all our bases covered, but with 160, you feel like you are a little bit short," Cummins said.
"We gave it a good crack with the ball. We thought we needed wickets; we had plenty of death bowling, and we knew the impact player would bowl 1-2 overs. That's why we went with Rahul. You have got to play well away from home to make the final. Unfortunately, it hasn't clicked so far this season. We have a short break, and we go again.
Every game we talk about assessing, the boys did well to get through the power play, and there wasn't reckless hitting. The next game is at home, and we know that venue pretty well,” he added.
For SRH, it was their fifth loss in seven games this season.
(PTI inputs)