New Delhi: It was a night to scour statistics books for all the wrong reasons as armour-plated Mumbai Indians crushed Delhi Daredevils with an authoritative, record-busting victory at the Kotla here on Saturday that also sealed their berth in the playoffs.
The margin was a massive 147 runs, eclipsing the 144-run margin Royal Challengers Bangalore had carved out over Gujarat Lions last year. Delhi’s 66 was also their lowest for the season, two shy of the 68 they managed against Kings XI Punjab at Mohali last Sunday.
Needing 213 to pull off a second successive 200-plus chase, the hosts were undone in the first four overs. Thursday’s heroes Rishab Pant and Sanju Samson together contributed zero to the team total and Shreyas Iyer added a further three. At 20/3 in 3.2 overs, the chase was dead in the water.
Mitch McClenaghan (1/18), Jasprit Bumrah (1/6) and Lasith Malinga (2/5) took a wicket each in their respective first overs, the Sri Lankan slinger also becoming the first bowler in IPL history to cross the 150 mark with Iyer’s scalp.
Over numbers Four and Five provided more joy for Mumbai, Harbhajan Singh joining the carnage with the scalp of Delhi skipper Karun Nair (21) and Malinga seeing off all-rounder Corey Anderson. At this stage the Daredevils (35/5) wore a distinctly bedraggled look and the house-full Kotla had already started emptying.
Batsmen continued to come and go, Harbhajan (3/22) taking out Pat Cummins after Karn Sharma (3/11) had snared Marlon Samuels and it was left to the tail to push the total past the 50 mark, but not very much further.
Earlier, Lendl Simmons (66) and fellow-Trinidadian Kieron Pollard put the Delhi bowling to the sword as the league leaders raced to 212/3 after being asked to bat first.
Mumbai made a sedate start in which their first boundary came only off the 18th ball faced. The shower of sixes and fours that followed however, more than made up for the beginning, and between them the two West Indians provided a substantial 129 runs to the team total. Simmons averages in the high forties in the IPL, and Saturday was no different.
