It has been a case of so near yet so far for Mumbai in their two matches so far. Twice they have come close to victory, only to fritter it away in key moments.

If it was the brilliance of Dwayne Bravo and Kedar Jadhav that broke Mumbai hearts in the opening game, by one wicket, their second encounter, against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Thursday, April 12, had Deepak Hooda and Billy Stanlake hold their nerve. In the low-scoring thriller, Hyderabad completed a one-wicket win off the last ball.

Shane Bond, the Mumbai bowling coach, said he expected till the end that it would go to the Super Over. “We fought really well to get ourselves into a position, we just weren’t quite good enough,” he said.

“I thought today we made some decision-making errors. If we played a little smarter, kicked on and got a score of 160-170, it would have been really tough against our bowling attack.”

One crucial member of that bowling attack is Mayank Markande, the relatively unknown leg-spinner from Punjab, who for the second game running flummoxed the batsmen with his quick-arm action. He picked up 4-23 in his four overs, with his wickets including Saha, Dhawan, Manish Pandey and Shakib Al Hasan.

“He is wonderful to watch,” said Rashid on the 20-year-old Markande. “I saw him in the first game in Mumbai, he was really bowling well. Same here today, the way that he was bowling, it was amazing.

“Once leg-spinners get their line and length right, they can be lethal against any batsman, in any conditions. The way he bowled was so impressive, and more so in such hard conditions and when you are defending such a low total.”