IPL 2017: Top 5 moments from Gujarat Lions vs Mumbai Indians encounters through IPL History
The Indian Premier League has had numerous memorable moments now into its 10th edition this year. Although the Gujarat Lions franchise is fairly new to the tournament having joined it in the previous year, they have given us a lot of memories to savour.
And whenever they have gone up against the Mumbai Indians, it has always been a belter of a match to watch. Since last year, the two teams have faced each other on three occasions with the Gujarat Lions winning two and the Mumbai Indians winning one, which came earlier this year.
When they will again go up against each other at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Rajkot on Saturday, the spectators should expect to see sparks flying again like in the previous occasions. All three previous encounters between these two sides were quite close ones.
The Mumbai Indians won against the Lions with their maiden victory against them at the Wankhede Stadium in their first encounter of this edition and will be looking to ride on that momentum to notch up another victory over the Lions.
Let us have a look at some of the finest moments from the matches between these two sides throughout IPL history.
#1 Aaron Finch takes Gujarat Lions to a thrilling victory in 2016 with an unbeaten 67
Winning the toss and electing to bowl first, Gujarat restricted Mumbai to a low total of 143/8 at their own den. The Lions bowlers bowled well in tandem and didn’t allow any of the Mumbai batsmen to get off to quick starts. As a result, the pressure was mounted on the Mumbai batsmen and wickets kept falling at regular intervals as they tried to up the ante.
They could manage only 143 at the end which meant the bowlers and fielders had to give more than their 100 percent if they wanted to defend that total.
The Mumbai bowlers responded to the situation very well and kept striking at regular intervals. However, it was opener Aaron Finch who kept fighting with the bat. On one hand, he held up one end as wickets fell from the other and didn’t let the run rate climb. He kept his cool in the tensest situation when the Lions needed 11 of the last over to be bowled by death overs specialist Jasprit Bumrah.
With the help of Kulkarni who smashed one boundary on the third ball of the over, the equation boiled down to three runs off just two balls for Finch. He took a couple of runs on the penultimate ball which meant the Lions needed one run on the last ball. And Finch finished it off in style, pulling a short ball outside the off stump to the deep mid-wicket boundary for a four. Finch was adjudged the ‘Man of the Match’ for the third consecutive time in that edition.