New Delhi: Steve Smith-led Rising Pune Supergiant set themselves up for a memorable title win by restricting two- time champions Mumbai Indians to a mediocre total of 129 for eight in the IPL summit clash in Hyderabad following some brilliant performance with their bowlers. (IPL 2017 Final, RPS vs MI - LIVE Blog | Full Coverage)
Rohit Sharma opted to bat after winning the toss but Mumbai batsmen failed to deliver while the Supergiant bowlers came out firing on all cylinders.
Krunal Pandya top-scored with a crucial 47-run knock while skipper Rohit contributed 24 runs in Mumbai innings. Jaydev Unadkat (2/19) and Adam Zampa (2/32) shared four wickets between them for Pune Supergiant.
As far as the first half of the match is concerned, it all executed as per plans by Steve Smith, with of course some valuable inputs form MS Dhoni.
After RPS restricted MI to a mediocre total of 129, brother of the Pune franchise owner compared the pairing of Smith and Dhoni with a rather the following tweet:-
Outstanding combinations:
Laurel- Hardy
Jai -Veeru
Smith- Dhoni#IPLfinal— Harsh Goenka (@hvgoenka) May 21, 2017
“Outstanding combinations:
Laurel- Hardy
Jai -Veeru
Smith- Dhoni#IPLfinal,” tweeted Harsh Goenka.
Mumbai were under pressure at 16 for 2 in 5 overs before Rohit picked up Lockie Ferguson for some special treatment, hitting four boundaries to get a move on.
He couldn't continue the same pace and it wasn't long before Rayudu was found short failing to beat Steve Smith's direct throw, a probably game-changing moment for Pune.
