Agencies
Mumbai
Aaron Finch led the Gujarat Lions to a thrilling, last ball victory by seven wickets against the Mumbai Indians in their IPL match at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Saturday.
The defending champions were restricted to just 143-8 by the Lions who chose to bowl first but then fought back hard on the back of Mitch McClenaghan’s 4-21 to take the game to the final over with the Lions requiring 11 to win with just three wickets remaining.
Finch scrambled two from the first ball and then took a single but it was the boundary Dhawal Kulkarni belted through midwicket from the third ball which put the Lions in charge. Another single allowed Finch to smash the final ball of the match back past the bowler for four to seal a third successive win for the tournament’s new boys.
Mumbai were always short of a decent score following a top order collapse. Right arm seamer Kulkarni struck twice in his first two overs when Rohit Sharma flicked a delivery to square leg and Hardik Pandya found the same fielder with a pull shot against a harmless long hop.
But there was no luck with the third wicket with left arm spinner Shadab Jakati deliberately firing a quicker delivery down the leg side for Dinesh Karthik to superbly stump the dangerous Jos Buttler for a laboured 16 from 21 deliveries.
The equally dangerous Kieron Pollard continues to look out of touch after injury and skied his third delivery to Caribbean colleague Dwayne Bravo at long off to leave the defending champions struggling on 59-4 at the halfway point of the innings.
Opener Parthiv Patel worked hard for his 34 from 29 balls but fell at the end of the 13th over when another pull shot fell into the safe hands off James Faulkner at deep midwicket and the last chance of a decent total disappeared when Harbhajan Singh departed to the excellent and in-form Bravo.
But the run chase was anything but straightforward. Brendon McCullum (6) was caught at point, Suresh Raina (27) became entangled hooking a short ball “ again “ and Dinesh Karthik (9) nailed a sweep shot against Pandya only to see Harbhajan Singh take a terrific catch above his head on the boundary.
Bravo, however, was unlucky as his attempted ramp shot to a short ball from Jasprit Bumrah was adjudged caught behind although replays confirmed there was no edge.
Tim Southee (25 from 11 balls) and Krunal Pandya (20 from 11) launched a couple of lusty “ and lucky “ blows in the final couple of overs to give the defending champions something to bowl at but it never looked like being enough “ although it very nearly was.
