Jason Roy smashed an unbeaten 91 as Delhi Daredevils defeated hosts Mumbai Indians by seven wickets in a last-ball thriller in the Indian Premier League on Saturday.
Opener Roy made a mockery of a listless Mumbai Indians bowling attack as he hammered six fours and as many sixes in his 53-ball knock to help Delhi overhaul the home team's 194/7 for their first win of the season.
It was the third successive loss for MI and they remain without a point after three matches.
With 11 needed in the final over, Englishman Roy hammered Mustafizur Rahman for four and a six, before playing out three dot balls. Delhi needed one-run off the final ball and Roy connected it and completed the run to ensure that his side won, with Shreyas Iyer (27 not out) at the other end.
Roy and skipper Gautam Gambhir conjured up a 50-run stand for the first wicket. Roy made his intentions clear hitting a four off Hardik Pandya. He then smashed a towering six and a four off Akila Dananjaya as Delhi raced to 23/0 in two overs.
Hardik Pandya conceded 21 runs in his second over as Roy hammered him for two consecutive sixes over long on and square-leg respectively and followed it with a four.
But Gambhir (15), failed to convert his start, as he gave a sitter to Rohit Sharma off Rahman.
Leggie Mayank Markande was taken to task by Roy and one down Rishabh Pant (47 off 25 balls), who also played his role to perfection.
Pant did not spare Dhananjaya, hitting him for two sixes and a four as Delhi grabbed 19 runs of the 10th over. But Kieron Pollard brought MI back into the game with a stunning diving catch at long-off as Pant went back to the pavilion with the visitors at 119/2. Glenn Maxwell's (13) stay at the crease was cut short with Hardik taking a stunning catch.
Iyer and Roy ensured that there was no further damage and finally took their side home.
Earlier, Mumbai Indians batting finally clicked with Suryakumar Yadav leading the way with a whirlwind fifty as the defending champions posted a formidable score.
After being put to bat, the strategy of opening the inning with Yadav, instead of captain Rohit Sharma, and Evin Lewis worked wonderfully well, as they gave MI a flying start with a 102-run-stand.
After Yadav (53 off 32 balls) and Lewis (48 off 28 balls) posted the century stand, their good work was continued by Ishan Kishan (44 off 23 balls). But the latter order batsmen failed to sustain the tempo and the total fell well below what the openers had promised.
Yadav and Lewis made their intentions clear by smashing a four each in the first over off Trent Boult. They brutally punished Boult as 15 runs came in his second over, with Yadav hitting two fours and Lewis striking his first six. Yadav then welcomed Mohammed Shami with a six and followed it with two fours as he made a mockery of the listless Delhi attack.
MI raced to 84/0 after the Powerplay, their highest score in IPL history in the first six overs. But soon after that, Rahul Tewatia applied the brakes and send Lewis back, who was caught by Jason Roy at mid-off. Lewis smashed four fours and as many sixes.
Mumbai Indians have lost all the 3 matches in the last ball. Let us hope they pull up their socks in the upcoming matches.
Tewatia then trapped Surya in front of the wicket as Mumbai lost two quick wickets. Surya, who hit seven fours and a six, unsuccessfully reviewed the decision.
But Mumbai lost Rohit (18), Krunal Pandya (11) and Hardik Pandya (2) in quick succession, as Delhi bowlers made a strong comeback in middle and death overs.
Them performing liveNajmuddin Saifuddin Qawwal Group
Despite his growing profile, he has not previously worked on video game voice acting projectsYouTube/ IO Interactive
The cast of Marriage Material in key moments from the play, including Avita Jay, Kiran Landa, Omar Malik, Irfan Shamji and Anoushka Deshmukh
Sathnam Sanghera’s 'Marriage Material' adapted into bold new play on conformity
The play Marriage Material at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre is Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s adaptation of Sathnam Sanghera’s novel of the same name, which first came out in 2013.
She is lucky to have Iqbal Khan direct Marriage Material. The play, a co-production with the Birmingham Rep, is set in the late 1960s. Mr and Mrs Bains (played by Jaz Singh Deol and Avita Jay) run a corner shop in Wolverhampton. Their younger daughter, Surinder (Anoushka Deshmukh), is 16, her sister Kamaljit (Kiran Landa) is just a bit older.
They have a neighbour, Patwant Dhanda (Irfan Shamji), who, as we shall soon see, is not a very pleasant man. In fact, he comes across just as racist as Enoch Powell, who represented Wolverhampton South West for the Tories from 1950 to 1974.
It will be recalled this was a time when Sikhs working on the buses were told they couldn’t wear a turban. That was a hard-fought battle that had to be won.
The Bains, meanwhile, simply want to get their girls married off.
Nothing new here, I thought.
What makes the tale different is that the plot twists and turns down the generations. Mr Dhanda, who has the makings of a paedophile, makes a pitch for one of the girls when Mr Bains dies early in the play. “A life with no man in the house is no life,” he informs the newly widowed Mrs Bains.
Mr Dhanda has a wife but she has returned to India so he considers himself to be a free man.
Surinder’s English teacher from school, Miss Flanagan (Celeste Dodwell), who is also head of the fifth form, tells Mrs Bains about her daughter: “I don’t want to embarrass you, but she is bright. Ridiculously bright.”
She adds: “Mrs Bains, I think it would be a pity if Surinder didn’t stay on at school.” The initial response from Mrs Bains is not encouraging: “Too much education makes people’s brains get mixed up, they don’t sleep at night…”
But she is finally persuaded that Surinder should be allowed to stay on for a while longer before being married off.
Mr Bains was very old school. When Surinder confides she would one day like to be “a somebody”, he is amused that “my daughter wants to be a somebody”.
“Like you,” she tells her father.
Mr Bains consoles his daughter: “We will find a somebody for you to marry.”
At the point of a possible marriage, however, Surinder is sweet-talked by chocolate salesman Jim Wilson (Tommy Belshaw) into running away with him. They share a love of literature, and he calls her “Sue Bains”. But the relationship does not end well.
Once she has left, Surinder is written off as “dead” by her family. The story that is circulated is that she was only 16 when she was killed in a car crash. That’s better than to let on that she ran off with a white man.
By the time she is reconciled with her sister towards the end of the play, a great deal has changed. Kamaljit married Tanvir Banga (Omar Malik), a young man who helped out in the Bains’ corner shop. When the two sisters meet again, Tanvir has also died. But he and Kamaljit had a son, Arjan Banga (Jaz Singh Deol doubles up for this role after the death of Mr Bains). He has come home after his father’s death to help his mother who is still running the family corner shop.
Meanwhile, Mr Dhanda’s business has prospered. He now has a son, Ranjit Dhanda (the role is taken by Omar Malik after Tanvir’s death), and he is nearly as unpleasant as his father.
Arjan has an English fiancée, Claire (Celeste Dodwell). In London, Arjan worked as a creative director. But after deciding to stay in Wolverhampton to help his mother, he decides he cannot marry Claire because she is white. In other words, Asians are not free of racism, either. Happily, at the end, the couple are reconciled.
As for Surinder, she parted company with Jim Wilson after realising he was all talk, depended on her for money and had failed to earn a penny from his literary pretensions. She had prospered, though, as a hotel owner and had been transformed in time into a well-groomed businesswoman. After being tracked down by Arjan, she decides to return to her roots in Wolverhampton and help Kamaljit run the family corner shop. Perhaps 50 years had passed during the passage of the play.
Being subjected to racism turned some Asians into racists themselves. The word goreh (white person) is repeatedly spat out with venom. Maybe it is worth remembering the play’s audience isn’t exclusively Asian – white folk are watching as well. And maybe some of the toilet humour ridiculing white people, which always makes me cringe, could be cut out.
In Sanghera’s novel, there is a quote from Enoch Powell’s speech in November 1968: “The West Indian or Asian does not, by being born in England, become an Englishman. In law he becomes a United Kingdom citizen by birth; in fact, he is a west Indian or an Asian still... he will by the very nature of things have lost one country without gaining another, lost one nationality without acquiring a new one. Time is running out against us and them. With the lapse of a generation or so we shall at last have succeeded – to the benefit of nobody – in reproducing ‘in England’s green and pleasant land’ the haunting tragedy of the US.”
In Marriage Material, where the acting is marvellous (apart from Mr Dhanda’s Indian mannerisms and accent being overdone) we do travel across a couple of generations.
There is a scene when Tanvir rejects Mr Dhanda’s vision of creating a little Punjab in Wolverhampton.
Mr Dhanda wants to take over the Bains’ corner shop and is putting pressure on Tanvir to sign the papers. He says: “In this country, money is the path to freedom.”
“Sign, please,” he instructs Tanvir. “We must make sure our children learn to behave nicely, according to our rules.”
He insists: “We maintain our identity so we can be ourselves.”
Tanvir disagrees: “We can be us here. With the goreh.”
Dhanda warns him: “Then we will be inviting chaos.”
Tanvir’s comment is telling: “You sound like Enoch.”
Kamaljit, who is expecting a baby with her husband Tanvir, says: “I would like my child to grow up knowing the history of the Gurus and to read the Granth Sahib. And to love their culture.”
Tanvir tells his wife: “I would like my child to go to the finest schools, to cheer for England in the World Cup and eat Yorkshire pudding on a Sunday.”
Kamaljit sets out a dream that has perhaps come to pass with many third and fourth generation British Asians: “Maybe our child can do both.” Much, much later, in a throwback to the past, we learn of Surinder’s O-level results: “Biology A, Chemistry A, English Language A, English Literature A, French A, History B, Latin A, Mathematics A, Physics A…”
Kamaljit tells her younger sister: “Never mind about the B.”
And that is quintessentially Asian. Their acting is outstanding.
Marriage Material is at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre until June 21, and at the Birmingham Rep from June 25-July 5