Ashish Nehra rattles Mumbai with fiery display

Ashish Nehra brought all his experience to the fore in his three-wicket display that helped Hyderabad thrash Mumbai by 85 runs in the Indian Twenty20 competition in Visakhapatnam on Sunday.

Rohit Sharma, Mumbai's captain, won the toss, and opted to bowl first, on a surface that favoured batting. Mumbai's bowlers found it difficult to dislodge Hyderabad's in form openers, David Warner and Shikhar Dhawan, who added a 85-run opening partnership.

When Harbhajan Singh finally dismissed Warner in the tenth over, he had already helped build a solid platform for a late onslaught. Yuvraj Singh, playing only his second match in this edition of the competition, provided the late fireworks and clobbered three fours and two sixes in his 23-ball 39 that helped Hyderabad post 177 in their innings.

Mumbai looked to mimic Hyderabad's exploits with the bat, but Nehra and the other bowlers refused to allow them to settle. Bhuvneshwar Kumar dismissed Parthiv Patel in the first over and Nehra breached Sharma's defences in the second over. Ambati Rayadu was Nehra's second victim and fell in the fourth over to a short delivery on off.

Mumbai looked to Jos Buttler and Krunal Pandya to bail them out of trouble, but Nehra, with his menacing line, accounted for Buttler two-balls later. The Nehra-Kumar combine had torn apart Mumbai's top order as they were reduced to 30 for five in five overs. Mumbai failed to recover from the procession of wickets and survived for just 16.3 overs to add managed just 92 runs. Nehra ended with figures of three for 15 in his three overs.

Hyderabad is now second in the points table with six wins and three losses, while Mumbai are fifth, with five wins and five losses. "Trying my best, and whatever I can do for the team. Today was my day. Last 3-4 games I'm getting the rhythm back," Nehra said. "All in all, I'm feeling good. Wicket was on a slower side, in that bargain, if we go for 1 or 2 sixes extra, we were looking to take wickets."