Rajasthan chase 165 to increase troubles for Mumbai Indians - The 9th match of the Indian Premiere League season 8th was played in Ahmedabad. It was a home match for the Rajasthan Royals. The match was played between the Royals and the Mumbai Indians. It was an important game for both the teams as winning early helps in this format of the tournament. Mumbai on the other hand were on a back-foot as they ended up on the losing side. After winning the toss Mumbai Indians decided to bat first.
The opening pair of Aaron Finch and Parthiv Patel was looking good as they scored 24 runs in 3.3 overs but it was here when Finch after scoring 10 runs got retired hurt. Unmukt Chand came into bat next. Patel couldn’t last long as he lost his wicket in the next over scoring 16 runs. Rohit Sharma who came in next got out for duck and Mumbai were in great trouble struggling at 31/2. The trouble increased for the team as Chand too lost his wicket in the 10th over leaving his team at a score of 45 runs. Corey Anderson and Kieron Pollard came into bat and this was the last hope for the Mumbai Indians. Both the batsmen with their sense of cricket batted well for the team. In the last 10 overs they scored 120 runs to take the team to a total of 164. Anderson scored 50 runs off 38 balls while Pollard scored 70 runs of 34 balls.
Rajasthan needed a good start to take the team cross the line. Sanju Samson after scoring 17 runs lost his wicket leaving his team at a score of 28 runs in 5th over. Ajinkya Rahane and Steven Smith batted together well to help the team out of the trouble in the match. Rahane scored 46 runs in 39 balls before losing his wicket in the 14th over. Steven Smith continued to bat well and ended up scoring 79 runs in 53 balls. He remained unbeaten throughout the innings to as Rajasthan registered a win against Mumbai with 5 balls remaining.
Kieron Pollard won the Yes Bank maximum sixes award. Steven Smith was named as the man of the match Deepak Hooda won the HotStar of the match award for hitting two consecutive sixes.