Picture : Twitter / IPL
Having ended their six match losing streak by beating Kings XI Punjab in their previous encounter, one expected Royal Challengers Bangalore to improve further. But that did not happen. And again they lost. Their 7th out of eight matches. This time the Mumbai Indians beat them by five wickets with their familiar weaknesses coming to the fore match after match and the side showing no intent whatsoever to learn from the mistakes.
RCB skipper Virat Kohli won the toss and decided to bat first. A strange move considering the team has struggled in all departments. And at Wankhede RCB need a 200 plus total at least to put the pressure given their wayward and listless bowling . Especially at the death where is it is surely the worst .
And RCB innings started on a grim note . Skipper Virat Kohli fell early for 8. Prthiv Patel ( 28 ). But A B De Villiers and Moeen Ali revived RCB with 95 run third wicket stand. De Villiers scored 75 off 51 balls with six fours and four sixes, While Ali scored 51 off 32 balls with 1 four and five sixes. It was thanks to De Villiers and Ali that RCB could post a total of 171/ 7 in 201 overs. That too was below par given the Mumbai Indians batting fire- power.
For Mumbai Indians, Lasith malinga rolled back years with an impressive spell of 4/ 31 ( 4 overs) , Hardik Pandya 1/ 21 ( 3 overs) , Jason Behrendorff 1/ 49 ( 4 overs) were the wicket- takers.
In reply Mumbai got off to a confident start with skipper Rohit Sharma and Quinton De Kock . The duo hammered the listless RCB bowling . Racing to quick 70 in 7.1 overs when Rohit Fell for 28. De Kock soon fell after one run added to the total at 71 for 40. Moeen Ali bagged both the openers . Suryakumar Yadav 29, Ishan Kishan 21, Krunal Pandya 11 fell quickly and the match looked tight.
But needing 22 off the last two overs, Hardik pandya with a blistering unbeaten 37 off 16 balls exploited the RCB bowling weakness at the death . He smashed Pawan Negi for two mighty sixes and two fours to take away the match . He finished the game with a single off the last ball of the 19th over as Mumbai reached 172 for 5 in 19 overs.
RCB bowling has been listless right through and the figures say it all , Umesh Yadav 0/ 25 ( 2 Overs) , Navdeep Saini 0/ 34 ( 3 Overs) , Mohammed Siraj 1/ 21 ( 2 overs) . Yuzvendra Chahal once again bowled well 2/ 27 ( 4 overs) , Moeen Ali 2/ 28 ( 4 overs)
