Picture : Twitter / IPL
Five-time IPL winners and reigning champions Mumbai Indians knopw how to win from absolutely hopeless positions . This attribute once against came to the fore as the defending champions defended a modest of 152 against Kolkata Knight Riders in Chennai to win by 10 runs .
After KKR Skipper Eoin Morgan asked Mumbai to bat first , they lost South African Quinton de Kock for 2. But Skipper Rohit Sharma 43 ( 32 balls, 3 fours 1 six) and Surya Kumar Yadav 56 ( 36 ball , 7 fours ands 2 sixes) repaired the innings . The rest flopped – Ishan Kishan ( 1), Hardik Pandya ( 15), Kieron Pollard ( 5), Krunal Pandya ( 15) . KKR skipper Morgan rotated his bowlers wisely and checked the run flow. Mumbai were all out for 152/10 in their twenty overs.
For KKR, Pat Cummins 2/24 ( 4 overs), Prasidh Krishna 1/42 ( 4 overs),the star of the show was Andre Russell 5/15 ( 2 overs) , Shakib Al Hasan 1/23 ( 4 overs), Varun Chakravarthy 1/27 ( 4 overs), Harbhajan Singh 0/ 17 ( 2 overs)
Needing a confident chase of a modest target the KKR batting was inexplicable after a good start and the team which appeared to have the match in control simply threw away their wickets by playing shots that was not needed at all. It required common sense not rush of blood . KKR last year in IPL 2020 narrowly missed out qualification due to net run- rate . Loss like this would come to haunt them they fail to qualify again for sure. The shot selection was very poor . KKR gifted away the match to Mumbai Indians . The relief on Mumbai Skipper Rohit Sharma ‘s face said it all . Nitish Rana ( 57 ) , Shubman Gill ( 33) were the only batsmen to reach double figures. This was shocking and hard to explain. KKR Skipper Eoin Morgan fell to an unwanted shot for ( 7), Rahul Tripathi ( 5), Shakib Al Hasan ( 9 ), Andre Russell , who had poor last year with the bat continued his poor form scoring 9 (15) the big hits he is know n for never came. Dinesh Karthik was not out on 8 .
For Mumbai, Rahul Chahar was outstanding with 4/27 ( 4 overs). Trent Boult showed why is one of the best with a superb final over ( KKR needed 15 , conceded only 4 and took two wickets) bagging 2/27 ( 4 overs), Krunal Pandya 1/13 ( 4 overs) did not give away runs. Jasprit Bumrah 0/28 ( 4 overs)
Mumbai heaved a sigh of relief after having the first match to RCB, KKR on the other hand will rue the missed opportunity and will have only themselves to blame. KKR Head coach Brendon McCullum would be furious for this batting collapse. Skipper Morgan needs to fire as well. In both the matches with the bat he was below par.
