CHENNAI: Sai Sudharsan's 45 off 39 balls and Umesh Yadav's brilliant final over where he accounted for the wickets of Hardik Pandya and Piyush Chawla ensured a thrilling six-run win for Gujarat Titans over Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League at the Narendra Modi stadium at Ahmedabad on Sunday.
When 19 runs were required off the last over bowled by Yadav, Mumbai's captain struck a six and a four to start the over.
Pandya got out of the third delivery, and Chawla followed the next ball. In the last two balls, Umesh conceded one run each and Mumbai failed to win their season opener, despite Rohit Sharma (43) and Dewald Brewis (46) playing their role.
Earlier, B Sai Sudharsan's effort and skipper Shubman Gill's 31 came in handy for Gujarat Titans to post 168 for 6 in 20 overs.
Sai Sudharsan who had a very fruitful season for Gujarat in the last edition of the IPL was in his element today as he played his allotted role to perfection. He chose the right ball to attack and when wickets were falling at the other end, he stayed calm and professionally went about his job. Bumrah ended his knock on 45 as Tilak Varma completed a low catch at backward square leg.
Later, Rahul Tewatia made a quick fire 22, where 17 runs came off a Luke Wood over.
Put into bat, Gujarat Titans lost its opener Wriddhiman Saha early, courtesy of a peach of a delivery from Bumrah.
Gill played with lot of caution choosing the right ball to attack and kept scoring the odd boundary to keep tabs on the run rate. He even once slog sweeped Shams Mulani over deep backward square leg for a huge six. But his joy was short-lived as he was done in by a change of pace from Chawla and holed it out to long-on, where Rohit Sharma made no mistake.
Omarzai, on his debut tagged along with Sai Sudharsan to take the fight to the opposition. Both decided to negate the threat from the experienced Piyush Chawla by notching up a six each. Omarzai tried to whack a pumped delivery from Gerald Coetzee over mid-wicket, but all he could manage was to hole out to Tilak Varma at deep square leg.
Thus Hardik Pandya in his first game as captain for Mumbai was able to get breakthroughs with his shrewd reading of the situation, but he was a failure as a bowler conceding 30 runs in 3 overs and going wicketless.
Brief scores:
Gujarat Titans 168 for 6 in 20 ovs (Shubman Gill 31, Sai Sudharsan 45, Bumrah 3/14 ) bt Mumbai Indians 162 for 9 in 20 ovs (Rohit Sharma 43, Dewald Brewis 46).