IPL 2017, Match 7, KKR v MI: CT Player of the Match - Nitish Rana

Sent in to bat at No. 3 today, Nitish Rana produced an innings that he will savour for a very long time. He was responsible for guiding Mumbai home in a nerve-wrecking 4-wicket win to give this year’s IPL its first official pendulum-shifting game.

This was Rana’s 2nd IPL half-century in only his 6th game for his franchise. He batted like a man with international experience, remaining very calm and composed; never looking to get bogged down with the scoreboard pressure. The Delhi-lad just carried on the momentum provided by the solid opening partnership between Butler and Parthiv Patel. He started his innings with a boundary first ball – a thick inner edge in an attempted pull shot and the ball beat the short fine leg fielder to reach the fence – off Kuldeep Yadav.

Kept the flow of runs ticking

Mumbai lost both their openers within the space of six balls and then their skipper, courtesy a howler on the umpire’s part, in the 10th over, so their chase of 179 was severely jolted but Rana made sure that the runs kept ticking away. At the half way mark, Mumbai Indians still needed a hefty 105 runs with 7 wickets in hand. Rana got the circulation going with the ones and the twos till he decided enough is enough. He took on Kuldeep Yadav in the 12th over of the innings when the asking rate rocketed to over 11 runs an over. The stylish left-hander slog swept, which luckily went into the gap between deep mid-wicket and deep square leg, for a welcome boundary, followed by an effortless strike over covers to finish the over with a six. The asking rate, courtesy those two strikes, was brought down to 10.25 again. Mumbai lost a wicket the next ball which brought Pollard out to the centre.

Building the innings for a flourish at the end

Not many people can proudly say that a guy like Kieron Pollard played second-fiddle to them. That is what Rana did tonight. Pollard – barring the six over mid-wicket – largely struggled to score quickly but that never deterred Rana as he went about his business as per his plans.

Mumbai were in with an outside chance when they required 60 runs to win off the final four overs. This is when Rana put his hand up. His strike off Chris Woakes over cover in the 17th over, despite losing Pollard three balls ago, meant that he would not go down with a fight. He followed it up with consecutive boundaries off Boult in the next over – the second one a six that had a reminiscence of a young Yuvraj Singh – to keep Mumbai in the hunt.

He had Hardik Pandya to his company to finish off an improbable chase. KKR played the gamble of handing the 19th over to young Ankit Rajpoot and that is what, in the end, cost them the game as Rana scooped him for a six off the first ball. Rajpoot wouldn’t have been ever in a tenser situation than this. To attack the bowler, as young as Rajpoot, early in the over was the key and Rana did that in style. Six off the first ball was followed by a boundary over mid-off which also raised Rana’s fifty which took just 28 balls to complete. Gold dust – in a situation like this. Those strikes got the equation to 20 from 10 balls and it was Mumbai’s game to lose from there on. He got dismissed the very next ball but not before he played an innings which harbingered his arrival to top-notch cricket.

Mumbai eventually got to victory with 4 wickets in hand and a ball to spare. The victory was built on Nitish Rana’s heroics with the bat and he gets 4.5 rating for his outstanding innings today.