IPL 2022: Mumbai Indians register 1st win of season on Rohit Sharma’s birthday, beat RR by 5 wickets

Mumbai Indians picked up their first win of IPL 2022 season after they defeated Rajasthan Royals by 5 wickets in a thrilling encounter. On Skipper Rohit Sharma’s birthday, Suryakumar Yada, Tim David and Tilak Varma’s crucial knocks were enough to see MI over the line. 

Birthday boy Rohit won the toss, and he chose to bowl first, after which Rajasthan Royals got off to a decent start. 

While Devdutt Padikkal departed early, RR opener Jos Buttler continued to counter-attack as he tried to build a partnership with first Sanju Samson and later Darryl Mitchell. 

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Buttler’s 67-run inning came to an end after he struck four sixes off Hrithik Shokeen, who got his redemption on the last ball of his over. After Buttler went back to the dugout, Ravichandran Ashwin took the job of taking RR to health score upon himself.

Ravichandran Ashwin’s late flurry (21 off 9) helped his side to a fight-worthy total of 158/6 in 20 overs.

In reply, Mumbai Indians got off to a shaky start yet again, as Rohit departed back to the dugout after scoring just 2 runs. 

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Ishan Kishan and Suryakumar Yadav then tried to steady the ship and stitch together a partnership. Kishan was looking promising but was dismissed at 26 runs by Trent Boult, after which Tilak Varma joined SKY in the middle. 

Both of them did really well to shift the momentum in Mumbai’s favour. Suryakumar Yadav’s brilliant inning of 51 was brought to an abrupt end by Yuzvendra Chahal, and after Tilak follow him back to the dugout, there were a few eyebrows raised, but Tim David’s 20-run knock papered over the cracks. 

With the win, Mumbai put their first points on the board, while they are out of the race for playoffs, they will try to finish as high as possible, while Rajasthan will hope to bounce back to winning ways in the next one.