Powered by a Suryakumar Yadav masterclass, the Mumbai Indians (MI) beat Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) by 8 wickets at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Tuesday. While MI had opted to bowl first and conceded 199 in the first innings, it wasn't enough for RCB in front of a rampaging Suryakumar who scored 83 off 35 deliveries. Suryakumar's innings was studded 7 boundaries and 6 sixes and ensured that MI won the match with 21 balls remaining to jump to the third positon on the points table with 12 points. They launched themselves into the top four from the eighth place where they found themselves in before the start of the match.
Earlier, MI started positively with the ball with Jason Behrendorff striking twice early, removing Virat Kohli in the very first over of the innings before also getting rid of Anuj Rawat in his second over, the third of the innings. Despite the wickets though, captain Faf du Plessis (65 off 41) and Glenn Maxwell (68 off 33) did not let the momentum drop and took on the MI bowlers, stitching a 120-run stand off 62 deliveries. When captain Rohit Sharma was in desperate need of wickets, he once again turned to Behrendorff who got rid of Maxwell after which MI did make a bit of a comeback of sorts. The Australian pacer ended up as MI's pick of the bowlers, finishing with figures of 3 for 36.
From Bangalore's lower-middle order, Dinesh Karthik did score 30 off 18 but a superb final over, in the context of the game, from Akash Madhwal, conceding just 6, kept restricted Bangalore to less than 200 runs on the board when they looked set to post much more at one point.
In the run chase, before Suryakumar's amazing display of T20 batting, Ishan Kishan (42 off 21) and Rohit Sharma (7 off 8) started off on a positive note before both were removed in the same over by Wanindu Hasaranga. However, the partnership between Suryakumar and Nehal Wadehra (52 off 34) put MI on the door of a victory to remember. MI lost Suryakumar and Tim David off successive balls but that was a bit too late from RCB's perspective.
The victory has taken to the third place behind Gujarat Titans (GT) and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) with three more matches to go.