It was a night to cherish for Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma as he passed 5,000 runs in the Indian Premier League as well as setting the platform for victory over Kings XI Punjab.
Rohit reached the milestone with a cover drive off the first ball he faced and then went on to top score with a well-compiled 45-ball 70 that set the foundation for Mumbai’s comprehensive 48-run victory at the Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi.
Sent into bat first, Mumbai gor off to the worst possible start. They lost Quinton de Kock in the first over and the run out of Suryakumar Yadav in the fourth over left them at 21-2.
Sheldon Cottrell, who was smashed for five sixes in the second last over he bowled against Rajasthan Royal at Sharjah on Tuesday, bowled a wicket maiden to provide Punjab an excellent start.
The left-arm seamer knocked back De Kock’s middle stump with his fifth delivery to complete a tidy first spell by taking 1-17 from three overs.
Mumbai laboured to 62-2 at the halfway mark but the next half of their innings produced 129 runs.
Kieron Pollard (47) and Hardik Pandya (30) shared a 67-run stand for Mumbai to post 191-5 with Pollard rounding off his team’s innings by smashing Krishnappa Gowtham’s last three deliveries for six.
Jasprit Bumrah provided the breakthrough for Mumbai when he got one through the tournament’s leading scorer Mayank Agarwal’s gates in the fourth over.
Krunal Pandya struck in the next over by removing KK Nair and the departure of KL Rahul to Rahul Chahar left Punjab struggling at 60-3.
Nicholas Pooran (44) departed at 101 to a catch behind off James Pattinson in the 14th over and Glen Maxwell (11) fell to Chahar in the next as Mumbai secured a second win in four games to move top of the table.
