Josh Inglis produced a banger of an innings, one where he took Bumrah down for 20 runs in an over. Nehal Wadhera has had a campaign to remember. Batting at No. 5, he showed great steel and rode the kind of luck a batter at that position earns by being clear-headed. Wadhera could’ve been dismissed on 2 if Naman Dhir had not misjudged a catching opportunity on the midwicket boundary and came rushing in instead of holding his position. He enjoyed another life on 13 and made the most of it, the pick of his shots a straight six off Ashwani Kumar in the 16th over just before he was dismissed for 48 off 39.

PBKS’ bowlers deserved credit as well. They understood that going into the pitch and taking pace off was a useful option. Kyle Jamieson took pace off once every 2.67 deliveries on average. He is a Test match bowler starting to find his way even when conditions aren’t in his favour. PBKS always found a way to come back just as MI were threatening to get away. A big powerplay was offset with a wicket in the seventh over. Fifty runs between overs nine and 12 was offset by the wickets of the set batters Suryakumar Yadav (44 off 26) and Tilak Verma (44 off 29) between overs 14 and 15. ESPNcricnifo’s forecaster had MI looking good for 220 at the halfway stage. PBKS kept them to 204.

A lot of teams this IPL have focused on not allowing an early wicket to disrupt their attempt to take advantage of the field restrictions. MI lost Rohit Sharma to the 14th ball of the innings. They attacked 11 of the next 22, with Jonny Bairstow leading the way even if on occasion he was beaten by slower balls into the wicket. MI collected 43 runs off overs three, five and six.

Suryakumar arrived immediately after the powerplay. At that stage, PBKS were starting to string something together. They matched him up with Yuzvendra Chahal, whom he strikes at only 117 in the IPL. On Sunday, the MI lynchpin hammered the PBKS legspinner for 33 off 16 balls. That included three sixes – two majestic hits down the ground and one sweep shot that turned the bowler’s intentions to tie him down on leg stump into a real gimme. Over the course of his 44 off 26 balls, Suryakumar also took home a world record – the highest aggregate (717) in any T20 tournament by a non-opener, surpassing AB de Villiers (687 in IPL 2016).

Tilak came down the track and struck his second ball for a six. Later, he simply extended a defensive push and presented a high elbow and that was enough to send Vyshak Vijaykumar over the long-off boundary. His innings only had two fours and two sixes but he was striking at 152.

Dhir was a lot more high-impact. He was 5 off 4 balls at the start of the 17th over. He took three boundaries off PBKS’ best death bowler, Arshdeep Singh, and never looked back. Arshdeep had to return for the 19th over and work with an over-rate penalty. He could only have four fielders on the boundary and Dhir exploited that handicap to score 37 off 18 with seven fours. At that point, it felt like anybody’s game. Except it wasn’t. It was Shreyas Iyer’s game. It was always Shreyas Iyer’s game.

Brief scores:
Punjab Kings 207 for 5 in 19 overs (Priyansh Arya 20, Josh Inglis 38, Shreyas Iyer 87*, Nehal Wadhera 48; Trent Boult 1-38, Ashwani Kumar 2-55, Hardik Pandya 1-19) beat Mumbai Indians 203 for 6 in 20 overs (Jonny Bairstow 38, Tilak Varma 44, Suryakumar Yadav  44, Hardik Pandya 15, Naman Dhir 37; Kyle Jamieson 1-30, Marcus Stoinis 1-14, Azmatullah Omarzai 2-43, Vijayakumar Vyshak 1-30, Yuzvendra Chahal 1-39) by five wickets

[Cricinfo]