Mumbai Indians won the toss and elected to field first against Super Giants while regular loss of wickets in their chase of 200 meant Mumbai Indians were always playing catch-up but they took somewhat close in the end and lost by 18 runs.
Mumbai Indians had won the toss and elected to field first. Mumbai Indians opened the bowling with Tilak Varma’s off-breaks and then went on to use six different bowlers in the power play.
The Super Giant opening batter de Kock crunched Unadkat for two fours, and followed it up with two more in the next against Ashwin with his trademark slog-sweeps, Fabien Allen, who played his first game in the ongoing IPL, took a de Kock wicket on his third ball but not before leaking a six to him, and then a first-ball four to Manish Pandey, which gave Super Giants a strong power play of 57/1.
Pandey and KL Rahul were hitting a boundary nearly every over and Mumbai made their task easier. One fumble at deep square-leg at the end of the eighth over made it two fours in a row off Allen.
Rahul was on a fire and the Mumbai Bowlers were continuously beaten by him. He continued to unleash his drives and scythes, one of which brought up his third IPL century in what was his 100th game in the league.
Unadkat and Bumrah conceded 22 runs in three of the last four overs to keep the opposition just under 200 when 210 or thereabouts looked like.
Avesh Got Mumbai Indians skipper Rohit to edge behind in his first over and then got Brevis to hand a catch to cover, but only after a stunning show from the Proteas teenager.
Suryakumar and Varma had to consolidate in the middle overs by not taking much risk and even though they collected four fours in the space of eight balls off Krunal Pandya and Ravi Bishnoi, the asking rate had shot up to 12 with 84 needed off 42.
Hardly went anything right for Mumbai after they won the toss. Their bowling was wayward, the fielding was forgettable, and the batting lacked big partnerships or big individual innings.
Regular loss of wickets in their chase of 200 meant Mumbai Indians were always playing catch-up, but they took somewhat close in the end.
Mumbai needed 73 off 27 when Pollard came into bat and he took it down to 26 off the last over, but it was always a bridge too far.
Mumbai Indians suffered a loss against Super Giants by 18 runs. The franchise lost its sixth consecutive game in the ongoing tournament and is on the last stage by getting out of the tournament.
“The batters need to settle in and not collapse. (Areas of improvement) The batters haven’t done well in the powerplay at times. Keeping the opposition quiet early in their innings would help. I don’t look at oppositions differently, they are a competitive champion side. But I don’t do much different. (On the new teams being at the top) We have played well, we need to be humble and keep learning. The team is brilliant and I enjoy spending time with them, creating a comfortable team was something we looked for in the auction,”
says KL Rahul, the winning skipper (LSG).
“Not building partnerships cost us, it was not a moment. We tried to put the team before the individual, so we tried to keep the key bowlers in the back-end but it did not work out despite him bowling well. The others need to pull up their socks. We try and find combinations and play XIs that work but we can’t do it after losses. It depends on the opposition but losses make it difficult. Sometimes, the opposition’s game must be applauded, as was the case with Rahul. If I know what was going wrong, I’d correct it but it’s not coming off. But I do take responsibility but I will look to use my experience and we hope to come back again as a team too,”
says Rohit Sharma, the losing skipper (MI).
Lucknow Super Giants 199 for 4 (Rahul 103*, Pandey 38, Unadkat 2-32) beat Mumbai Indians (Suryakumar 37, Brevis 31, Avesh 3-30) by 18 runs