Mumbai Indians recorded a resounding six-wicket win over Punjab Kings in Mohali on Wednesday, May 3 to move up to sixth in the points table. The five-time champions bossed the chase once again this season and registered their fifth win of the tournament after a poor start to their campaign. Jitesh Sharma and Liam Livingstone's unbeaten 100+ run partnership was overshadowed by a collective batting effort by the MI batters.
Asked to bat first, Punjab Kings lost the wicket of Prabhsimran Singh in the second over, but captain Shikhar Dhawan and Matthew Short made sure they didn't spoil their powerplay and scored 50 runs in the first 6 overs. Piyush Chawla broke the 62-run partnership by dismissing Dhawan in the eighth over and then removed Short in the 12th over to pick his second wicket of the night.
The carnage started when Jitesh Sharma joined the party along with Liam Livingstone. The duo put on an unbeaten 119 partnership off 53 balls to post a mammoth total of 214 runs on the board. PBKS were 78/2 after 10 overs, then scored 136 runs in the next 60 balls as the two right-handers smashed boundaries for fun. England star pacer Jofra Archer had another bad day, conceding 56 in four overs without taking a wicket.
Chasing 216, Mumbai got off to poor start as they lost skipper Rohit Sharma for a 3-ball duck in the first over. But Ishan Kishan and Cameron Green made 54 run partnership for the second wicket before the latter got out in the last ball of the powerplay. Suryakumar Yadav came out to bat at No 4 and joined with Kishan, who was hammering PBKS bowlers all around the ground.
The two added 100-plus partnership and ensured they were well ahead in the game. However, both were dismissed in the 16 and 17th over, respectively, but they made it easy for Tim David and Tilak Varma to finish the match. The duo remained unbeaten in another successful 200+ chase and took the team over the finish line with seven balls to spare.
Here's how fans reacted to MI's win:
2 consecutive historic chases😍 Mumbai is certainly back with double bang🔥🔥
— Harsh Gupta (@harshgupta16581) May 3, 2023
Today was probably Rohit Sharma’s most useful knock of the season for Mumbai Indians.
— Satyam Singh (@MyFreakyTweets) May 3, 2023
Ambani playing well from dugout.... Money paid to arshdeep
— Anubhav K😈🇮🇳 (@Anubhav_Memerz) May 3, 2023
Meanwhile MI has conceded back to back 200 in last 4 matches
— Sahil45 (@Sahil3317) May 3, 2023
THIS IS WHY MUMBAI INDIANS IS A GOAT FRANCHISE
— Yashh (@Y_On_Earthh) May 3, 2023
Tournament has become more alive. Teams from 2 to 7 gets interesting
— Govind Varma (@varmagovind0507) May 3, 2023
Punjab Kings became the first team to score 200+ and concede 200+ in four consecutive matches in the History of T20 Cricket. Things are Perfectly Balanced.
— Harsh 15....100 (@harsh_15_100) May 3, 2023
My man has taken revenge successfully pic.twitter.com/zE2M02vwk5
— Abhishek (@be_mewadi) May 3, 2023
Back to Back 2 200+ successful run chase
— Ansh Srivastav (@anshhsrivastav) May 3, 2023
Champions for a reason
What a batting line-up probably best rn in IPL 🤯🔥
— Reingxx (@Ayush90638218) May 3, 2023
Kya bat he dil khush kr Diya ❤️
— Nikhil Tale (@nikhil_tale1) May 3, 2023