IPL 2018: Five Biggest mistakes teams committed this week

The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2018 is in full swing in its second week and we can’t get enough of all the cricketing action! Be it high-octane run chases or underdogs coming out victorious, this season of the glamorous tournament has been keeping us satiated with constantly exciting encounters. While the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) juggernauts have been rolling ahead in full steam, not all teams are without their follies.

With the second week of the IPL 2018 drawing to a quick close, the onlookers have been in for consecutive visual treats with three 190+ first innings scores having been registered in the past week. By now, most teams have played 2-3 games. While the ones in winning positions have not felt the burden of mixing up their team combination, the same can’t be said for the teams lurking in the bottom half of the points table. There have been ample instances of team decisions going haywire, costing them the match. Let’s take a look at how some of the franchises went wrong with their approaches this week.

1. RCB not using leg-spin against Rohit Sharma in initial overs

It’s no new news that Rohit Sharma isn’t the most comfortable batsman against leg spin bowling. Neither is the fact that Sharma can prove to be one of the most dangerous batsmen if it’s his day. If we were to sum up the reasons for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB)’s 46-run defeat to the Mumbai Indians (MI) on Tuesday (April 17), the above lines would be more than sufficient.

RCB would’ve considered themselves to be in with a fair chance at winning in Tuesday’s encounter when Mumbai were reduced to 0-2 in the very first over, owing to Umesh Yadav’s terrific bowling. With Rohit Sharma having come in to bat under considerable duress, it was expected that leg-spin would be the obvious choice for RCB skipper, Virat Kohli as it’s a long-known weak zone for Sharma’s otherwise flawless batting skills. However, what ensued was an unfathomable repetition of pacers Chris Woakes, Mohammad Siraj and Yadav till the 9th over, with only one over being given to spinner, Washington Sundar.

By the time Chahal was brought into the attack in the tenth over, Sharma and Evin Lewis had settled in and there was no stopping them at that juncture. The MI skipper went on to score 94 runs off just 52 balls, taking their total to a mammoth 213 runs. The pressure of chasing such a huge score coupled with an abject failure of the RCB middle-order acted as the final nail in RCB’s coffin.