By Prakash Nair 
Mumbai, May 4: It was always going to come down to the openers. When Ryan Rickelton and Rohit Sharma walked out to chase 229 at the Wankhede Stadium on Monday night, the ground had already been through one extraordinary innings Nicholas Pooran had just reminded the entire IPL that he exists, and exists dangerously and the crowd was buzzing with the kind of nervous energy that only a massive chase at a batsman’s ground can produce. By the time those two were done, the result was never really in doubt. Mumbai Indians won by 6 wickets with 8 balls to spare, and the Wankhede exhaled.
This was not a tidy, comfortable win. It was loud, occasionally chaotic, and exactly what MI needed.
Pooran Woke Up And LSG Nearly Made It Unreachable
Let’s go back to the first innings, because what Nicholas Pooran did with the bat tonight deserves more than a footnote.
Coming in at number three a position he had not batted at all season the West Indian left-hander played an innings so violent and so clean that it briefly made the match feel one-sided in LSG’s favour. His fifty came off 17 balls. Eight sixes. A four. An absolute demolition of MI’s bowling attack in the phase of the game when it hurts most.
Before tonight, Pooran had managed 82 runs in eight innings across the entire IPL 2026 season. A strike rate sitting below 82. Numbers so out of character that people had genuinely started writing him off. Tonight he answered every single one of those questions in the span of a few overs, and by the time he was done, LSG had raced to 123/1 in just 8 overs with the total threatening to go past 260.
Mitchell Marsh was busy at the other end, finishing with 44 and providing the kind of anchoring presence that prevented the innings from becoming a one-man show. Josh Inglis making his LSG debut after arriving in Mumbai straight from his own wedding, getting his cap from Marsh himself hit three boundaries in his first four balls before AM Ghazanfar had him mistiming a pull for 13 off 5 deliveries. A debut to tell the grandchildren about, even if it ended quickly.
Jasprit Bumrah had a night he would rather forget. Thirty-one runs off his first two overs. Three front-foot no-balls in the innings, one of which erased a legitimate Himmat Singh wicket a moment that genuinely could have cost MI the game if the chase had gone differently. He is clearly carrying something through this IPL, whether physical or in confidence, and tonight was not the evening it turned around.
Still, MI’s bowling found its discipline in the death. Aiden Markram finished unbeaten on 31 off 25 and Himmat Singh made an excellent 40 not out off 31, their sixth-wicket stand worth 62 unbeaten runs. But in truth, that partnership represented LSG salvaging something from what looked like 260-plus. They closed at 228/5. Competitive. Imposing. Not quite enough.
Rohit Sharma Came Home Tonight
There is a specific kind of roar that the Wankhede produces when Rohit Sharma walks through the gate to bat. It is different from the noise for anyone else. It carries history the centuries, the tournaments, the countless evenings when this ground felt like it belonged to him personally.
Tonight, that roar came back.
He had missed five matches with a hamstring injury. He took a fitness test the day before this game. He batted in the nets. The question until the toss was whether he would even play. He came in as an impact player substitute, and when his name went up on the giant screen, the Wankhede crowd let you know exactly how much they had missed him.
What followed was 44 balls of the Rohit Sharma that MI fans have been waiting all season to see.
He started with a thick edge over slip for four the kind of shot that comes from a batter trusting his hands even when the footwork is not quite there. Then Rickelton pulled Mohsin Khan for six over square leg from the other end, and suddenly MI were flying. By the time the powerplay ended, they were well ahead of the required rate. The Wankhede was loud. The dew was settling on the ground. And LSG’s bowlers were running out of answers.
Rohit reached his fifty off 27 balls, depositing spinner Manimaran Siddharth over wide long-on, with the scoreboard reading 104/0 in the 8th over. The crowd gave him a standing ovation for a half-century in the middle of a chase, which tells you everything about the emotional temperature inside that stadium.
He eventually fell for 84 off 44 balls going for the big one and finding Mohammed Shami in the deep and walked back to another standing ovation. He missed his hundred. Nobody seemed to mind.
Rickelton’s 83 Off 32 Was As Good As It Gets
If Rohit’s innings carried emotion, Ryan Rickelton’s carried something closer to violence.
83 runs. 32 balls. Fours, sixes, and the kind of clean striking that makes opposition captains run out of ideas mid-over. He and Rohit put on 143 for the opening wicket a partnership that essentially decided the match before the halfway point of the chase. When Mohsin Khan finally had him caught at the edge of the ring at cover, there was almost no celebration in the LSG camp. They knew what the scoreboard already showed.
The South African wicketkeeper-batter has quietly become one of this MI side’s most important players. He leads their run charts with 297 for the season. Tonight added another statement to that tally.
Middle Overs Drama Just Enough to Keep Things Interesting
After both openers fell, LSG had a window. A small one, but real.
Manimaran Siddharth, brought on as LSG’s impact player, removed Tilak Varma for 11 off 13 balls and then had Suryakumar Yadav still searching for his best form this IPL caught by Pooran for just 12 off 7. For a brief, slightly tense passage, the required rate was ticking up and MI needed someone to settle things down.
Naman Dhir did exactly that. He came in, assessed the situation, and then started hitting. Boundaries off Prince Yadav. A six off Shami. The calm authority of someone who has earned his place in this lineup one difficult cameo at a time. When Josh Inglis dropped a catch at cover and injured his thumb in the process, Dhir survived what could have been a turning point and made LSG pay immediately for the reprieve.
By the 17th over, MI were at 202/3. The match was done. The last few overs were played out in celebration mode.
MI won by 6 wickets. 8 balls to spare. Target of 229 chased in 18.4 overs.
The Details That Matter
A note on the captaincy. Hardik Pandya missed this match with back spasms, meaning Suryakumar Yadav led the side tonight. Pandya’s absence is another complication in a season that has already had more than its share but SKY handled the responsibility quietly and well, even if his own batting did not fire on this occasion.
And a note on Pooran. His hundred tonight was remarkable and real, and it raises the uncomfortable question of whether LSG’s season might have looked very different had he found this form six matches ago. For a franchise now virtually eliminated from playoff contention despite a genuinely strong bowling attack, that question will linger through the off-season.
For MI, the arithmetic is still difficult. Two wins before tonight, seven losses, a points tally that requires near-perfection across the remaining games just to reach a playoff place. The mathematics have not changed. But the mood in that dressing room has. Rohit is back. The opening partnership clicked tonight like nothing else in MI’s season so far. And for a team that has spent the last month slowly losing faith in itself, that matters more than the points column suggests.
The Wankhede gave them one of their best nights of this IPL. Rickelton’s 32-ball 83. Rohit’s homecoming 84. A 229-run chase completed with 8 balls to spare.
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- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
