Match Review

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Chris Lynn, ever since he made a move from KKR to Mumbai, has not hit the jackpot yet, with most of his innings rendering ineffective. A lot was dependent on how he and Quinton de Kock would go about his things, but their dismissals had a knock-on effect on the team’s fortunes, with Ben Stokes doing most of the damage.

Highs and Lows

Taking no credit away from the magnificent ability of Suryakumar Yadav and Hardik Pandya, who added 81 runs for the sixth wicket, with the major contribution coming from the latter, the way Royals bowlers bowled today had to be the ultimate low in the game. They were absolutely clueless about what was happening in the middle, and even though Rajoot defended 13 runs in the last over, it must be noted that he had already conceded 57 runs in his four-over phase.

Rating Charts

The kind of top-order that Mumbai Indians have, it is easy to presume the devastating assault they can dish out, but today was one of those days when they blew hot and cold. Jos Buttler stepped on the accelerator from the third over itself to unsettle Mumbai’s plans, even though Robin Uthappa took his own sweet time to get going. The Royals eventually managed 56 runs with the field restrictions, definitely a decent score, against a bowling line up that spits venom.

Rohit Sharma has been enjoying a solid run of form, one that almost touched the superhuman level this SRL, and that was well on display against the Royals. He was Mumbai’s Buttler equivalent and then some more. Even though Quinton de Kock was dismissed for a paltry 19 off 12, Rohit continued to take the team to 63, taming everyone from Ankit Rajpoot to Jaydev Unadkat, from Tom Curran to Shreyas Gopal, as the Indian vice-captain had a gala time out there.

The thing with Buttler is even when he is not really doing his usual stuff, that is not really a bad day. Such has been his effectiveness as an opener that the Royals managed 75 runs during that nine-over phase yet never ever seemed like doing anything out of the box. He found little but of support from Samson and Smith but his occasional fours and sixes added runs by a tickle to guide the side to 131/2 at the end of 15th over.

After Rohit’s exploits, Mumbai were on course to achieve the total with effortless ease, but Chris Lynn and Kieron Pollard were dismissed cheaply to level the playing field. Ben Stokes emerged as the wrecker in chief by sending both the captain and vice-captain duo of Rohit and Stokes in quick succession to reduce the Mumbai side to 124/4 by the end of the 15th over - an addition of 61 runs from the powerplay score.

With Stokes, Parag, and Samson combinedly dishing out 28 runs at a less than impressive strike rate, the game, more often than not, would tend to a clingy one. But not with the presence of Steve Smith though. The talismanic Aussie brought his A-game to the fore to leave Rohit Sharma scratching his head in frustration to contain the run-flow. That he did all that with Buttler being in imperious form sounded the death knell for Mumbai, who gave away 42 runs in the three-over period between 16 and 18. Bumrah’s twin strikes in one over brought the sanity back but Mumbai had already spent 64 runs in the last five overs of the game.

If Mumbai were average, Rajasthan Royals were really bad in the death over even though they ended up being on the right side of the result. Imagine, they had got all the major batsmen out before the 13th over, and had 72 runs to defend in the last five but they managed to spend 68 in those overs. Surely Hardik Pandya and Suryakumar Yadav were good enough batsmen to take the game away from any team’s clutch but hey, you can’t bowl that badly either.

It was a terrific game of cricket that had all the ingredients a normal T20 game should consist of. Thrills, uncertainty, sixes galore and some bowling dominance to form an entertaining package of T20 cricket.