Five-time IPL champions Mumbai Indians (MI) knocked the Gujarat Titans (GT) out of the ongoing season with their 20-run victory in Mullanpur on Friday. After a fantastic batting performance which saw them post a humongous total of 228/5 in 20 overs, MI managed to restrict the opposition to 208/6 mainly thanks to Jasprit Bumrah's economical four-over spell of 1/27.
MI will face-off against PBKS on June 1
The victory saw the Mumbai-based franchise advance to Qualifier 2 where they will be facing-off against the Punjab Kings (PBKS) at the Narendra Modi stadium in Ahmedabad on June 1.
Following the conclusion of the match, former India cricketer Ravichandran Ashwin showered praise on Bumrah and credited him for the Mumbai-based franchise's victory. He also remarked that Bumrah is a 'cheat code' whose presence in the team keeps the captain at ease.
"This game could have gone even closer if Jasprit Bumrah's over didn't happen. The asking rate was like 12, 13, 14 but he gave like 7 or 8 runs in his last two overs. Rahul Tewatia hit him for a six but still, the way he came back and gave one run in the next two balls, that defines Bumrah. I had tweeted during the T20 World Cup that Bumrah is a cheat code in today's T20 cricket. Have you ever played this road rash, NFS game? It's a cheat code," Ashwin said on his YouTube channel.
"If you play these games, you can enter a code, and you can run faster. You can beat everyone else. It's a cheat code. In today's world, as a captain, sometimes I feel Jasprit Bumrah makes a captain look better than they actually are. The way he nails those yorkers, changes up his slower balls, all that said and done, I think Mumbai also went to yorkers very early," he added.
It was Bumrah who broke the 84-run stand between Sai Sudharsan and Washington Sundar by dismissing the latter for 48 runs in the 14th over. The pacer did so by unleashing an incredible yorker that rattled Sundar's stumps, sending the left-hand batter back to the pavilion.
Bumrah also bowled well in the death and gave away just nine runs in the 18th over. He didn't allow the hard-hitting duo of Sherfane Rutherford and Rahul Tewatia get the better of him and only conceded a single boundary throughout the important over. The 31-year-old is likely to play a crucial role in MI's upcoming encounter against PBKS where a victory will send them to their seventh IPL final.