Picture : Twitter / IPL
Given the form of the two teams – Rajasthan Royals and Mumbai Indians, it was Mumbai Indians who were touted as favourites. And at Wankhede it needed some thing special to beat them and this is what English star Jos Buttler did for the Royals in this IPL encounter.
Royals skipper Ajinkya Rahane won the toss and asked Mumbai to bat first. Quinton De Kock was the star with a fine innings of 81 studded with six fours and four sixes in his 52 ball knock . Skipper Rohit Sharma back in the side after missing the last encounter was left searching for his first fifty in season 12. He fell for 47.
Hardik Pandya played a cameo towards the end as Mumbai sought quick runs. Pandya hit 28 off 11 balls. Kieron Pollard fell for 6 . Suryakumar Yadav scored 16. Mumbai finished at 187 / 5 in 20 overs.
For the Royals the wicket- takers were, Jofra Archer 3/39 ( 4 overs) Dhawal Kulkarni 1/ 38 ( 4 overs) , Jaydev Unadkat 1/ 36 ( 4 overs)
The Royals showed positive intent from the word go. Skipper Ajinkya Rahane for the first time played with some aggression and fluency he is known for . He gave the start with a 21 ball 37. Jos Buttler was simply supporting him at the start. The duo put on 60 for the first wicket in 6.2 overs
Little did anybody realise that Buttler would soon cut loose with vengeance later on to tear the Mumbai bowling apart with breath-taking shots all around the wicket.
Rahane gave the start and Buttler carried on the attack to smash a blistering innings of 89 off 43 balls. Buttler hammered many a 8 fours and 7 sixes . He demolished Alzarri Joseph , who had taken 6/ 12 on debut, as he smashed him in the 13th over for astonishing 28 runs. Buttler hit two sixes and four fours off Joseph to bring down the run rate and the chase gettable . Joseph had a forgettable outing his figures were 0/ 53 ( 3 overs) .
The Royals suffered a scare too. Losing four wickets for 4 runs. From 170/ 3 in 16. 5 overs they slumped to 174 / 6 in 18.1 overs. With Sanju Samson ( 31) , Steve Smith ( 12) , Rahul Tripathi ( 1) , and Liam Livingstone ( 1) .
Fortunately Shreyas Gopal held his nerves and scored a vital unbeaten 13 off 7 including the winning four in 19. 3 overs to seal the match.
The Mumbai bowling figures read , Jason Behrendorff 0/ 31 ( 3 overs) , Alzarri Joseph was ripped apart 0/ 53 ( 3 overs) , Rahul Chahar 1/ 34 ( 4 overs) , Jasprit Bumrah 2/ 23 ( 4 overs) , Krunal Pandya 3/ 34 ( 4 overs)
