Will Jacks displayed his mastery. And the pacers effectively used a tacky pitch up front by taking pace off the ball consistently.
It culminated in Mumbai Indians registering a facile four-wicket win against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Thursday in the Indian Premier League 2025.
Riding on Jacks’ all-round show, the home team trounced the visiting side with 11 balls to spare to start off a long weekend for Mumbaikars on a happy note at the Wankhede Stadium.
Having struggled to leave his footprint in MI’s blues thus far, Jacks came good in both the departments to set up the victory.
Even before captain Hardik Pandya introduced Jacks into the attack right after the PowerPlay, Karn Sharma had headed back into the dressing room after injuring his hand while lunging forward to catch a miscued jab off Abhishek Sharma’s blade.
Karn’s loss could well have tilted the tide in Sunrisers’ favour, especially with Jasprit Bumrah having bowled two overs in the PowerPlay.
Even though Abhishek and Travis Head were subdued — having played put together their slowest PowerPlay score (46) as a pair — they were not going to waste any time in going after Jacks.
But Jacks started off with a seven-run over. In his next, with Abhishek having succumbed to Hardik in the eighth, Jacks drew Ishan Kishan forward, spun the ball and Ryan Rickelton whipped the bails off in no time.
Jacks then struck the decisive blow that ensured MI didn’t have to chase down a big total by forcing Head to hole out to long-off.
Had it not been for Aniket Verma’s blitz at the death, Sunrisers would have struggled to cross the 160-run mark.
Impact Player Rohit Sharma produced a cameo and the MI middle-order ensured it didn’t lose the plot thereafter.
Jacks came good with the willow too. Suryakumar Yadav and Hardik continued to accelerate with a combination of innovative strokeplay and power-hitting before Tilak Varma sealed the deal with a reverse-sweep off leggie Zeeshan Ansari.