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Mumbai. Thanks to the all-round play of Joffra Archer, Rajasthan Royals secured the playoff ticket by defeating Mumbai Indians by 30 runs in the Indian Premier League (IPL) T20 match here on Sunday. Archer played an important inning of 32 runs after the top-order batsmen faltered and took three wickets for just 17 runs in four overs of bowling.

Brijesh Sharma (26 runs in four overs), Nandre Berger (43 runs in four overs) and Yash Raj Punja (44 runs in four overs) supported him well by taking two wickets each. The Royals restricted Mumbai’s innings to 175 for nine after scoring 205 for eight in their do-or-die match despite wickets falling at regular intervals.

With this win, Royals have 16 points from 14 matches and have secured the fourth position in the points table. With this, the hopes of Punjab Kings and Kolkata Knight Riders ended. Mumbai Indians’ campaign, already out of the playoff race, ended in ninth place. For the team, Suryakumar Yadav contributed 60 runs, while captain Hardik Pandya contributed 34 runs and Will Jacques contributed 33 runs.

When invited to bat first, Rajasthan team kept losing wickets at regular intervals, but Dhruv Jurel made important contributions of 38 runs in 26 balls, Archer 32 runs in 15 balls, Dasun Shanaka 29 runs in 15 balls and Yashasvi Jaiswal made important contributions of 27 runs in 17 balls. Ravindra Jadeja (19 not out) and Nandre Berger (10 not out) made a partnership of 30 runs in 13 balls in the last overs to take the team to a competitive score.

For Mumbai Indians, Deepak Chahar took 43 wickets and Shardul Thakur took two wickets each for 41 runs. Will Jacques, Allah Ghazanfar and Corbin Bosch got one success each. Mumbai, chasing the target, lost four wickets for 38 runs. After getting Rohit Sharma caught behind the wicket without opening the account in the first over, Archer bowled Naman Dheer (six) in the second over.

Burger gave the third blow to Mumbai by getting the aggressive looking Ryan Rickelton (12) caught by Suryavanshi. However, Suryakumar Yadav gained confidence in this over by hitting a six and a four. Brijesh Sharma, who came to bowl in the sixth over, uprooted the wicket of Tilak Verma (three) on his very first ball. After the powerplay, the team’s score was 49 runs for four wickets.

Suryakumar hit sixes in consecutive overs of Jadeja, while from the other end Jacques delivered the ball of Yash Raj Punja into the audience. Meanwhile, Brijesh gave life to Suryakumar by taking a catch on the ball of Yash Raj. He was playing on 27 runs at that time. Jacques completed the team’s century of runs with a six in the 12th over against this bowler. He was out in this over.

Captain Hardik Pandya hit two sixes as soon as he came to the crease. Pandya continued his aggressive attitude and put pressure on the Royals bowlers by hitting fours on consecutive balls against Shanaka. Suryakumar completed his half-century by taking one run against Berger and then welcomed Brijesh with a four in the 15th over. Parag handed the ball to Archer in the 16th over and this bowler gave a big success to the team by completing Pandya’s innings of 34 runs in 15 balls.

Yash Raj put pressure on Mumbai by dismissing Bosch (two) in the next over and conceding just five runs from the over. Burger took the catch of Suryakumar on his own ball in the next over and ensured the team’s entry into the playoffs. On being invited to bat first, Jaiswal opened his hands with a six against Chahar. After this he also delivered Jax’s ball to the audience.

However, in an attempt to play another big shot, he played Jacques’ ball in the air and Bosch took the easy catch and gave the first blow to the Royals. Vaibhav Suryavanshi (four), who was looking uncomfortable at the other end, also got caught out after waving Chahar’s ball in the air in the next over.

Captain Parag (14) opened his hand with a six as soon as he came to the crease and then hit two consecutive fours off the ball of Allah Ghazanfar. He was caught by Tilak Verma near the boundary while trying to end the powerplay with a six, leaving the team at 54 for three in six overs.

Dhruv Jurel, who hit a six on Ghazanfar in the sixth over, batted carefully from one end, while from the other end, Shanaka maintained the run pace by hitting sixes easily against this Afghanistan bowler and Raghu Sharma. Shanaka’s aggressive innings of 29 runs in 15 balls ended when he was run out due to a misunderstanding with Jurel.

Both of them made a partnership of 45 runs for the third wicket, which was the biggest partnership of the Royals’ innings. After this wicket, Jurel took charge of scoring runs quickly and hit two consecutive fours against Ghazanfar and a big six over mid-on.

However, his innings also did not last long and Jurel’s wicket was uprooted on Bosch’s brilliant yorker. Donovan Ferreira became Chahar’s second victim after scoring 18 runs in 14 balls. Archer, who was sent up the batting order, also hit three sixes in his innings, while Jadeja and Berger troubled the Mumbai bowlers in the last overs, resulting in the team adding 73 runs in the last five overs.