(Cricket news) MI responded to the request made of them with great vehemence, winning the game and climbing to fourth. After waiting for over five hours, their playoff position was secured after GT defeated RCB in Bengaluru. 

Mumbai needed RCB to lose their game in order to defeat them after chasing down 201 thanks to Cameron Green’s 47-ball 103*. Ultimately, this happened. After reaching 16 points, they will take on Lucknow Super Giants on May 24 in the Eliminator.

When Sunrisers openers Mayank Agarwal and Vivrant Sharma smashed an opening stand of 140 runs in just 13.5 overs, Mumbai’s chances of winning appeared remote at one point. Sunrisers only scored 32 from their final four overs before Mumbai struck back in the dying overs to seize the initiative. At the time, it appeared that the pause would prove expensive, but Mumbai’s pursuit made it abundantly evident that perhaps even an additional 20 runs would have made little difference.

When Bhuvneshwar Kumar took the wicket of Ishan Kishan early in the game with the first three overs falling for just 24, Sunrisers momentarily had it under control in their defence. When Rohit Sharma was dropped by Sanvir Singh on 12, in the fifth over, things began to change. In addition to Green, he made them pay.

Agarwal and Vivrant, though, overcame a sluggish start to set up the game long before the devastation that the vast majority of the energetic 30,000 spectators anticipated. Vivrant ended the power play by moving from 10 off 16 to 27 off 24 with two brutal smacks to the ground off Piyush Chawla. However, there was no shortage of effort in the slow start. It might have been a case of nervousness and a few well-placed strokes reaching the fielders. He took just 36 deliveries to reach his half-century.

Akash Madhwal, who was assigned to bowl the difficult overs, gave Mumbai some temporary comfort when he caught Vivrant at the boundary for 69. It was the second-best score overall and the highest score by an Indian in a first IPL innings. Any happiness after finally succeeding, though, was swiftly dashed when the hot Heinrich Klaasen helped himself to a first-ball four.

Then, with a remarkable takedown of Kumar Kartikeya and Chawla off successive overs, Agarwal blazed towards a century, going from 62 off 36 to 83 off 45. However, Mumbai came back after he dismissed Madhwal with a knuckleball that was buried to cause him to heave across the line and nick.

In the final overs, Sunrisers went for 19 balls without scoring a boundary as Madhwal finished with 4 for 37 after also getting rid of Klaasen and Harry Brook in quick succession. After a last-ball six by Aiden Markram, Sunrisers ultimately just made it past 200 runs. The final four overs only managed to score 32 runs.

Sunrisers may have had another opportunity after early removal of Kishan had Rohit not mistimed a throw to midwicket. Sanvir offered a simple opportunity to let the floodgates flow.

Green slammed the subsequent ball over deep midwicket. It made the difference between young Nitish Kumar Reddy’s powerplay statistics of 2-0-19-0 and 2-0-12-1. Kartik Tyagi also continued to bowl hittable lengths and made matters worse by overstepping. In his first 10 balls, Green blasted four fours and two sixes, putting Mumbai in overdrive.

As runs poured against spin and Sunrisers struggled to maintain control of the game, he quickly reached his half-century off just 20 balls, while Rohit passed 11,000 T20 runs. The spinners’ poor bowling, covering the surface at an accelerated pace with no grip as the ball glides on smoothly, contributed to some of this.

Sanvir gave Rohit a second chance to recover on play number 51, but he soon lost it. However, it appeared as though Suryakumar Yadav was rushing as he calmly entered the pitch and lifted his first ball  for four.

In order to reduce the equation from 41 off 30 to 21 off 24, Suryakumar and Green then defeated an unpredictable Umran Malik for 20 off the 16th. With two overs left, it was a walk from there. The winning runs also gave Green his first T20 century as Mumbai made sure they accomplished their goal.

Also read: RCB’s IPL 2023 run comes to an end following a heartbreaking loss to GT