IPL 2018: 5 Biggest mistakes teams committed in the first week

The first full week of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2018 was fairly successful for teams like Sunrisers Hyderabad and even Chennai Super Kings but the likes of Mumbai Indians, Kolkata Knight Riders and Delhi Daredevils still have a lot to ponder over. The teams used the initial couple of games to play the XI that looked best on paper and are now making the odd changes to fit in the missing pieces.

The captains and team management is constantly under pressure with regards to their decision making. The thing with decisions is they’re master strokes if you’re able to pull it off and termed mistakes if the result is unfavourable. Here we look at the ones that didn’t quite go as plan and the team either missed a trick or cost them an opportunity to grab a win.

1. KKR trusting Vinay Kumar with the last over

R Vinay Kumar is quite a seasoned player. The 34-year-old is one of the few players who’ve been capped in all the eleven seasons and has played 105 IPL matches. Vinay had a manageable outing in the first match against Royal Challengers Bangalore where he picked up a couple of wickets for 30 runs.

Things went horribly wrong from him in the next against Chennai Super Kings. CSK needed 17 runs to win from the last 6 balls and there were two new batsmen at the crease. Dinesh Karthik handed Vinay the ball. He bowled a waist high full toss first up that Bravo hit for a six, the free hit got them another couple of runs, they played around for singles and needed two from the last two balls. He bowled one in the slot and Jadeja swung it over long-on for a six and CSK took the game.

Vinay had bowled only 1 over in the game before that and wasn’t really the wisest of moves to give him the ball. Also considering he doesn’t have the reputation of bowling Yorkers in the death, bowls just medium pace which is really easy to hit at that stage of the game. He was taken to the cleaners on social media thereafter and was out of the team for the next.