IPL 2019: Match 31, Mumbai Indians vs Royal Challengers Bangalore – Lesser Known Stats

Mumbai Indians continued their rich record against the Royal Challengers Bangalore who are inching closer to being knocked out of the tournament. On the day when India’s squad announcement made for the 50-overs World Cup 2019, the Indian team captain Virat Kohli (of RCB) faced his deputy Rohit Sharma Sharma (of MI). Kohli’s lieutenant in limited-overs cricket, in fact, holds a pretty solid record against him. The MI skipper has led his team in ten victories of the 13 meetings against RCB when Kolhi led them.

Here are the lesser known stats and numbers from RCB’s 7th defeat in eight matches this season:

Pandya, Negi and the 19th overs:

Hardik Pandya came into the spotlight during the game against Chennai Super Kings in IPL 2015. He walked out to bat ahead of Harbhajan Singh when MI needed 30 from two overs and faced left-arm spinner Pawan Negi. Hardik hit Negi for three sixes in the first three balls of the over to help his team complete the chase comfortably. Ashish Nehra, who went for 45 runs in three overs during that game for the Super Kings, forgot Hardik’s antics too early.

Nehra, the current bowling coach of RCB, forced Virat Kohli from the boundary line to bowl Negi in the 19th over when MI needed 22 runs. The game didn’t go into the final over as Pandya hit 6, 4, 4 and 6 off consecutive balls. He now has scored 39 runs from 11 deliveries against the left-arm spinner with as many as five maximums.

Don’t hit Chahal for a six:

Yuzvendra Chahal has a knack of coming back strongly after being hit for biggies which he has showcased in the previous two games. In the game against KXIP, KL Rahul came down the track to smash Chahal for a six. However, on the very next ball, Rahul stepped down the track and was stumped. Later, Mayank Agarwal unearthed a maximum off Chahal before getting bowled off a ripper. On Monday, Ishan Kishan hit his 3rd six coming down against the leg-spinner before he was stumped trying for yet another six.

A rare award for Malinga:

The player of the match award in this game was only the 6th in the IPL for Lasith Malinga who has a record 161 wickets to his name in this league. He is one of the three specialist fast bowlers to win six or more player of the match awards. Umesh Yadav leads the list with eight such awards including five against the Kings XI Punjab. Ashish Nehra also had six POTM awards in his IPL career that ended in 2017.

Kishan finally scores a run against RCB:

Ishan Kishan, Mumbai’s young No.4 of Mumbai Indians, found it tough to get going against the Royal Challengers. While representing the Gujarat Lions in 2017, Ishan had scored of 39 and 16 against RCB. However, in the previous season, Kishan bagged golden ducks in both matches against the Virat Kohli-led team.

In the game played at the Wankhede, Ishan was cleaned up Umesh Yadav on the 2nd ball of the game. Umesh dismissed Suryakumar Yadav on the first ball of the game to draw the keeper-batsman to the crease. Later during a game in Bangalore, the left-hander was cleaned up in the very first over of MI’s chase. He finally scored a run for MI against RCB with his 9-ball 21 on Monday.

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