By the time Kohli chose to go after the bowling, Royal Challengers were looking at upwards of 20 runs per over with less than half their batsmen left, and although some clean, gorgeous hits came off Kohli’s blade in that phase, the match was long gone.
Advertisement
RCB had MI 0 for 2 in 0.2. They had lost their fourth toss in a row and were asked to set a target yet again, when chasing has brought more victories to sides this IPL season.
Jasprit Bumrah, Mitch McClenaghan and Krunal were fantastic in claiming seven wickets between them, but Markande stemmed the flow of runs in the crucial middle overs and finished his four overs with figures of 25 for one after another fine performance. In each match only one of the “big four” has fired at once. With the likes of Umesh Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Washington Sundar, Tim Southee, Chris Woakes in the squad, Kohli had good reason to make such a proclamation.
Rohit Sharma hammered 94 off 52 balls. The second delivery of the over from the Englishman as the ball seemed to have kissed Pandya’s bat before going into the gloves of the wicketkeeper. RCB allowed Lewis to launch several pulls off regular short balls, and when they overcompensated with full ones later, they were swung for more sixes. Evin Lewis looked in supreme form against Delhi – scoring a quickfire 48. Lewis scored 65 runs with the help of 6 fours and 5 sixes whereas Rohit scored 94.
If Kohli started well, what hampered RCB’s run chase? He proved his worth on Tuesday as he accounted for the unsafe South Africa pair of Quinton de Kock (bowled) and AB de Villiers (caught at mid-wicket) in his second over itself. “Obviously everyone has to be able to step up at the death and bowl overs if they are needed to by the captain”. De Kock scored 26 runs, Kohli scored 57 runs and Mandeep scored 47 runs for the team.
Rohit Sharma was adjudged as the ‘Man of the Match’. He first broke the opening stand by cleaning up de Kock, and then AB hit one straight to deep midwicket fielder. Also await the ABD vs Krunal Pandya battle, with Pandya clearly having the upper hand at the moment (4 dismissals in 32 balls). If spinners can be used during powerplay, they should be trusted for slog overs too. However, Ravi Rampaul managed to hit the first ball for a six but could only score 4 runs in the last 5 balls leading to a super over.
MI made a horrific start losing Suryakumar Yadav (0) and Ishan Kishan (0) off the first two balls from Umesh and rallied to 60 for two after six overs.
Advertisement
Batsman Virat Kohli was well home so there was no chance of a run-out but Kishan was left sprawled on the ground clutching his face while the Mumbai physio rushed to attend to him.
