‘What a game, never give up’: Irfan, Yuvraj and others go wild as Daniel Sams pulls off a heist against Gujarat

Cricket is a game full of uncertainties and it was proved true once again after Mumbai pulled off an unlikely win against Gujarat. Defending nine in the final over, Daniel Sams helped Mumbai win by 5 runs. Batting first, Mumbai got off to a blazing start with Rohit Sharma and Ishan Kishan adding 74 runs in 7.3 overs before the skipper departed for a well made 43 of 29 balls. Rashid Khan got the wicket of Sharma. Soon after Suryakumar Yadav was also dismissed by Pradeep Sangwan. Ishan Kishan (45 off 29), Tilak Varma (21) and Kieron Pollard (4) also couldn’t do much as Gujarat claw back in the game. However, a strong finish by Tim David (44 off 21) helped Mumbai post a respectable 177-6, way below than what they looked like getting in the first 10 overs.

The chase was not stiff but not easy as well. However, a century stand between Wriddhiman Saha (55 off 40) and Shubman Gill (52 off 36) got Gujarat in a commanding position. Both Saha and Gill were dismissed in quick succession, giving some hope to the Mumbai fans but Hardik Pandya ensured that his team stay ahead in the game. However, his wicket made the match interesting. Still, it was Gujarat’s game when they needed nine of the final over. However, Daniel Sams had other plans.

Rohit Sharma: It was pretty tight towards the back end. Very satisfying, something we were looking for all this while. Luck has to turn at some stage, we’ll take that win with both hands. Credit to everyone. We were 15-20 runs short. The way we started, we got stuck in the middle. They bowled well in that situation. Tim David finished things really well. We knew it would be tough, but we held our nerves and that was good to see. A lot depends on how the game is going, who’s bowling well on the day. Luckily I had few resources so I could change-up. They bowled slower balls and it was difficult to hit. We wanted to do the same. We did that pretty well, it was a great effort from the bowling unit. We didn’t want to look too far ahead. Even today, we didn’t play our best cricket, a lot of credit to the bowlers at the back-end. It’s important to back the skills you have. Sams was under the pump in a couple of games but I know the quality he has. It’s important to back those guys. We are trying to maintain the same squad how much ever possible. Daniel Sams was brilliant.

Hardik Pandya: We’ll take 9 runs in the last over on any given day, but the two run-outs didn’t help us. In T20 cricket you can’t keep losing back-to-back wickets, it pushes you back. It’s one of the games where we ended on the losing side. We kind of played 19.2 or 19.3 overs of good cricket, but losing wickets didn’t help us like I said before. At one point I thought they would post more than 200, but our bowlers did well to restrict them.