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Electing to bat first, both the openers of Sunrisers Hyderabad, David Warner and Shikhar Dhawan failed to make an impression with the bat as they both were dismissed on consecutive deliveries.

Dhawan’s off-stump was splintered on Lasith Malinga’s last delivery of the first over, a perfect yorker-length delivery and Dhawan lost the battle against the pace. The next over started off with a loss of another wicket in the form of the in-form and consistent batsman, the leading run scorer of the tournament and the holder of Orange-cap, David Warner. Warner tried to top-edge Mitchell McClenaghan’s short-ball delivery and sends off the ball swiftly into the hands of Kieron Pollard. Sunrisers were reduced to seven for two in 1.1 overs.

The two new batsmen, Moises Henriques and Eoin Morgan struggled to rotate the strike and didn’t add much momentum. Another major blow came in the sixth over in the form of Morgan when McClenaghan trapped him into his cobweb of short-ball perfection. Morgan tried to cope up with the short-ball with an upper-cut but was caught at deep by the third man in charge, Lendl Simmons.

Soon after he departed, the scoreboard moved from 29-for-3 to 54-for-five by the end of ten overs. Tenth over brought troubles back for the Sunrisers, as back-to-back two wickets Henriques(11) and Naman Ojha(zero) were encountered off Jagadeesha Suchith.

The faith of Sunrisers Hyderabad was shaken as wickets were falling at continuous intervals. Hyderabad’s batting remained their bane as they were restricted by the Mumbai pacers to a paltry 113 for all from their 20 overs.

Left-arm fast bowler Mitchell McClenaghan, who took the new ball finished with 3-16 from his four overs and clinched the man-of-the-match award for his effort. Lasith Malinga and Jagadeesha Suchith got two wickets apiece.

With a small total to chase and pressure been pulled-off from the back of Mumbai’s batsmen, the openers, Parthiv Patel and Lendl Simmons flourish and ensured that McClenaghan’s three-wicket-haul wouldn’t go to waste as Mumbai completed a below-par chase with 37 balls and nine wickets to spare.

While Parthiv Patel belted nine fours and smashed an unbeaten 37-ball-51, Lendl Simmons was unlucky as he was dismissed just two runs short of his half century. The latter made 48 off 44 balls including four boundaries and two sixes. Skipper Rohit Sharma finished off the game by remaining unbeaten on 7.

It was a piece of cake for Mumbai Indians served fresh by Sunrisers Hyderabad with a cherry on top as Mumbai confirmed their berth in the playoffs. The hosts paid respect of high order to the visitors. After this win, Mumbai jumped to the second position in the points table with 16 points from 14 games and will play the first Qualifier on their home-ground at Wankhede Stadium against Chennai Superkings on Tuesday, while Hyderabad are no more alive in this year’s tournament.

Earlier, after winning the toss Rajasthan skipper Steve Smith decided to put his team to bat first. The team of Rajasthan left no stone unturned and placed their team’s score of 199/6 under the limelight at the Brabourne Stadium. Though it was a batting-pitch and KKR fought back in equal terms but it was Rajasthan who were excelling today. After examining the pitch whick looked greenish, good for batting and seam bowling, RR made three changes. Pravin Tambe, Rajat Bhatia and Ankit Sharma were replaced by Brainder Sran(who played his first game in the IPL), Dhawal Kulkarni and Stuart Binny. Kolkata made one change in their playing XI, they bench Sunil Narine and replaced him with Azhar Mahmood to add some depth in the team’s batting department along with bowling.

(It was a knock-out game for both the teams)

The opening pair of Rajasthan, the Rahane-Watson-duo helped their to flourish in the first six overs by going the extra mile and giving a dream start by putting 66 runs on the scoreboard. But as soon as the openers pulled themselves together, they ended up in losing a wicket in the form of Ajinkya Rahane, where he was trying to steal another run but Watson smelled the danger and sent him back to the dugout.

After Rahane’s 22-ball-37 send off , skipper Steve Smith didn’t spend much time on the crease. He flicked the full toss straight at the short fine leg and the ball landed safely in the hands of Morne Morkel. Every Rajasthan Royals’ batsmen tried to contribute some runs but only Shane Watson managed to thrive brilliantly. He stood till the end on the crease and remained unbeaten. His century of 104 runs off just 59 balls included nine fours and five sixes.

With a great total (to chase), comes great load of pressure on the batsmen. As the Kolkata openers Gautam Gambhir and Robin Uthappa stepped in to give an attacking reply to the Royals, Rajasthan brought their in-form and most consistent bowler Chris Morris into the attack to bowl the first over. Morris got his first wicket in that very over and dismissed Gautam Gambhir. Soon fortune had started to favor the Royals as they got another wicket in the form of Robin Uthappa, a major blow to Kolkata. Wrong selection of shot and he was caught at mid-off by Steve Smith.

Loss of both the openers and their were two new batsmen on the crease, Yusuf Pathan and Manish Pandey. The partnership started to build between the two, from 21/2 in the third over they accelerated the scoreboard to 77/2 by the end of eighth over. The beginning of ninth over brought another success for the Royals in the form of Manish Pandey’s return to the pavilion. After Pandey’s dismissal, the key player for Kolkata, Andrew Russell came in to bat at number five. The fall of early wickets and failure of of the openers built pressure on the middle-order and this led to continuous fall of wickets. The batting line-up of KKR crumbled in the last 10 overs. But out of nowhere Umesh Yadav showed a ray of hope when he let his freak flag fly in the death overs by adding some runs in the form of fours and sixes. But Royals are the one who are through to the playoffs as Kolkata fell short of 9 runs to reach their dream of making it up into the semifinal stage.

Shane Watson won the Man-of-the-match award for his 2 wckets haul and an unbeaten 104. “Certainly due. Through the tournament I wasn’t able to get going. Three or four day build up was good to sort things out, my batswing and all. Had a couple of days to work on a couple of things and be ready to go from the first ball. [Giving up captaincy] Especially bowling wise, it’s hard for me to know when I should bowl and when not to and the most important thing for me is to execute my skills. So many incredible sides in the IPL, not many weaknesses among them. For us its about riding the waves and going to the finals and giving ourselves the best chance to win. As good as I’ve batted in a long while, especially in T20 cricket, just to feel at ease in the way I was hitting the ball”

Earlier Chennai Superkings won the toss and their skipper MS Dhoni chose to bat first. Brendon McCullum had been threatening to explode all season with an unbeaten century he scored earlier and fell short of 19 runs to put another century in his kitty today. He scored 81 runs off 61 balls including seven fours and four sixes. It wasn’t a dream start for Chennai as they were reduced to 17/2 by the end of four overs.
Inspite of a trembling start, the fortune favored Chennai and a partnership between Brendon McCullum and Faf du Plessis helped to cross the mark of hundred runs for the team in the fifteenth over. Faf du Plessis was dismissed when he got engaged in a direct hit by Shane Watson,  Faf wanted  to steal another run but fell short of some inches before reaching the crease-line. The next over followed by McCullum’s send off to the dugout when Ankit Sharma showed no respect to him and took his catch. McCullum’s great effort came to an end off Chris Morris’ ball. Morris who is a former CSK player was the pick of the bowlers for Rajasthan, taking 3 for 19. Partnership between MS Dhoni(11) and DJ Bravo(9) contributed some runs to take the score to 157/7.
The captaincy title for the Royals was carried on by Steve Smith today instead of Shane Watson. Steve Smith with his captaincy tactics succeeded to restrict CSK below the mark of 160. But CSK has got many big names attached to their side but gladly the out-of-form Ravindra Jadeja proved his presence in the team today. His brilliant 4-for-11 included two crucial wickets of the Aussies, one of skipper Steven Smith and the other one of Shane Watson.
The department where Rajasthan Royals failed today was their batting side where no partnership survived for long. Continuous loss of wickets started to put pressure of the batsmen which they failed to release. Orange cap holder Ajinkya Rahane(23) seemed to have gotten off to a decent start, but fell within a couple of balls to reduce Rajasthan to 31/1 in the midst of the sixth over. Skipper Steve Smith, who came to the crease at number three managed to stand for only six balls. Steve Smith mistimed a sweep and the ball went straight to hit the leg stump and the bails were dislodged from their place.
When Jadeja came to bowl the tenth over and bid farewell to Watson’s innings and send him straight to the dugout. Watson tried sending the ball towards the long-off and DJ Bravo pulled off an absolute blinder by taking a one-handed catch and left the crowd in awe. After the end of ten overs Chennai crumbled Rajasthan to 63/3.
Despite the top-batsmen getting a decent start, the middle and lower order once again crumbled badly. But even after a fighting reply from the Rajasthan batsmen, the tourist side fell 12 runs short of their target.

The host side successfully managed to fix a spot into the playoffs for the eighth consecutive time. The word ‘Consistency’ is what best defines Chennai Superkings. Ravindra Jadeja won the Man-of-the-match award for his 4-for-11 (with an economy rate of 2.75).