At the Wankhede, Rajasthan Royals dominated the Mumbai Indians with their batting, scoring 65/0 in the powerplay and achieving their third-highest score of the season. Yashasvi Jaiswal’s impressive boundary-hitting skills put the home team’s bowlers under immense pressure, and Mumbai could have suffered even greater damage in the 1000th IPL game if not for the inspiring leadership of skipper Rohit Sharma, who led by example in the field.
Despite playing his 150th match as captain of the most successful franchise in IPL history and turning 36 on the day of the match, Rohit proved that his career still had a long way to go by delivering a couple of outstanding efforts that would have made his former fielding coach Jonty Rhodes proud.
One of Rohit Sharma’s standout fielding moments occurred in the third over of the match, with Jos Buttler facing Cameron Green. Green’s delivery was pitched on a good length, wide of off-stump, which gave Rohit enough time to position himself before Buttler smashed the ball towards cover with tremendous force.
The ball appeared to be heading straight for the boundary, but Rohit made a spectacular diving catch to stop it in mid-air. He was positioned at catching cover and had to take a couple of big strides to his right before flinging himself across the ground and extending his right arm over his head to make the catch. Without missing a beat, he quickly sent the ball hurtling towards the non-striker’s stumps.
The focus was squarely on Jaiswal, who played an exceptional innings filled with commanding stroke play to score 124 runs and push RR’s total past the 200-run mark. While Buttler started slowly and eventually fell to Chawla, Samson and Padikkal also departed in the following overs. However, Jaiswal continued to play brilliantly throughout.
Although Archer bowled a quiet over towards the end, the MI bowlers were largely ineffective and struggled to contain Jaiswal’s aggressive batting. Ultimately, Jaiswal’s impressive knock helped RR finish with a total of 212. In a previous game, Venky Iyer had scored a century, but MI still emerged victorious. As a chasing venue, MI would feel confident in their ability to track down the target.
