Cummins admits SRH falls short on tricky wicket as Mumbai Indians seal crucial win

Mumbai, April 18: Mumbai Indians (MI) registered their third win of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 season, defeating Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) by four wickets at the Wankhede Stadium on Thursday. Chasing a target of 163, MI got over the line in 18.1 overs, handing SRH their fifth defeat of the campaign.

With this result, Mumbai are in seventh place in the points table, while Hyderabad are at ninth.

After the match, SRH captain Pat Cummins admitted that his side fell short with the bat on a tricky surface.

"Wasn't the easiest of wickets," Cummins said

"160 was a few short. It was a tricky wicket, cutters were gripping. They shut down a lot of our scoring areas," he added.

Cummins, who led the bowling attack with figures of 3/26, felt the team gave it their all with the ball but needed a bit more with the bat.

"I thought we had all bases covered. 160-- you feel a little bit short, but I thought we gave it a good crack with the ball," he said.

"We thought we needed wickets. We had plenty of death bowling options in Eshan (Malinga), Harshal (Patel), and myself. Needed just an over or two, so we gave it to the leggie (Rahul Chahar)," he noted.

"Got to play well away from home to make the finals, unfortunately not clicked yet," Cummins added.

Coming to the match, MI won the toss and opted to field first. After that, Abhishek Sharma (40 in 28 balls, with seven fours) and Head (28 in 29 balls, with three fours) put on a 59-run partnership. However, the team could not maintain a fiery run-rate living up to the standard of their fiery brand of cricket, despite some effort from Heinrich Klaasen (37 in 28 balls, with three fours and two sixes). SRH posted 162/5 in their 20 overs, with Will Jacks (2/14) and Jasprit Bumrah (1/21) being top bowlers.

During the run-chase, MI top order contributed enough to help their cause, with Rohit Sharma (26 in 16 balls, with three sixes) and Ryan Rickelton (31 in 23 balls, with five fours) producing quickfire knocks that took MI to 69/2 by the time they were dismissed. A 52-run stand between Will Jacks (36 in 26 balls, with three fours and two sixes) and Suryakumar Yadav (26 in 15 balls, with two fours and two sixes) took MI on brink of an easy win, however SRH bowlers decided to put up a fight. Tilak Varma (21* in 17 balls, with a four) and Mitchell Santner (0*) took MI to a four-wicket win with 11 balls left.

Skipper Pat Cummins (3/26) and Eshan Malinga (2/36) put up fighting spells for SRH, but it was not enough.

Reader Comments

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Rahul K.

Tough loss for SRH but Cummins bowled brilliantly! 3/26 is an excellent spell. Just needed 20 more runs on that pitch. The middle order really needs to step up next game 💪

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Priya M.

MI finally showing some fight this season! SKY's cameo was 🔥 That six over extra cover was pure class. Hope they can keep this momentum going!

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Arjun S.

Respectful criticism: SRH's batting approach seems too rigid. On tricky wickets, they need to be more flexible with their shot selection instead of sticking to the same aggressive template.

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Sanjana R.

That Will Jacks performance was underrated! 36 with the bat and 2/14 with the ball? What an all-round show 👏 MI might have found their new star

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Vikram P.

The pitch was definitely tricky but 162 was defendable. SRH's death bowling has been their weak point all season. Need to sort that out quickly if they want to turn things around.

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Neha T.

So happy to see Rohit back in form! Those three sixes were vintage Hitman 😍 Hope this is the start of something special for MI this season!

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