IPL 2020: Match 5 – KKR vs MI – Who Said What

Mumbai Indians (MI) and the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) are two of the most popular teams in the IPL. Thus, there is always a great hype about the encounters between these two teams. However, the results have always been one-sided. No other IPL team has dominated any other like the way MI has dominated KKR. It was no different in IPL 2020 either.

The side from Mumbai comfortably defeated their opponents from Kolkata in Match 5. Thus, they have now extended their lead to 20 wins out of 26 games against KKR. In this match, MI first put up a brilliant show with the bat. They were spearheaded by skipper Rohit Sharma who scored a brilliant 54-ball 80. Suryakumar Yadav joined the party with a 28-ball 47. With contributions from the other batsmen, they managed to get 195 runs on the board.

Following up on these efforts, MI bowlers also put up a good show. They kept chipping in with regular wickets and never allowed KKR to settle in. KKR batsmen looked quite rusty and hence none of them couldn’t put up big scores. The troika of Jasprit Bumrah, James Pattinson and Trent Boult picked up two wickets each as MI registered a 49-run win, their first one this season. Moreover, this is also their first-ever win in the UAE.

Trent Boult, the MI bowler, said

I wouldn’t say I’m comfortable in these heat and conditions. It’s a big challenge to bowl against the likes of Morgan and Russell but it’s nice to come out on the winning side tonight. I have been bowling back in New Zealand and it’s the winter there, that’s been the biggest challenge but everyone is excited to have cricket around and I’m sure there will be a few crackers going ahead. New franchise for me this year, great bunch of guys, hopefully we can keep the winning ways.

Dinesh Karthik, the KKR skipper, said

I think we had areas to do well in bat and ball. I think it was a pretty rusty day to be honest, I don’t want to get too analytical about it but it’s ok the boys realise where they could have done better. Couple of the guys – Cummins and Morgan – just finished their quarantine today, it is hard – playing in the heat and getting used to the conditions. Don’t want to be too analytical, the boys put in a good effort. I haven’t had the conversation about that (regarding tweaking the top order) with Baz, will let you know by the next game.

Rohit Sharma, the MI skipper and the Man of the Match, said

It was only two players from the 2014 squad. It was all about how we executed our plans today, we were in good positions and it was all about being ruthless. The wicket was good and dew was coming down. I back myself to play my shots and have practiced quite a bit.

Pretty happy with the performance of my squad. All my shots were good (laughs), can’t pick one. I haven’t played a lot of cricket in a long time; it didn’t come out well in the first innings but glad to have done it tonight. We never knew that the IPL would happen in the UAE so we wanted a pace attack that was strong for the Wankhede. But the ball was seaming around for the first six overs over here as well.

We haven’t played much with Trent Boult and Pattinson, but it was good that we were on the same page. It takes a lot out of you to play in these conditions. Maybe I was a bit tired in the end and it was a lesson for us that one set batsmen needs to bat till the end. We’ve seen it in the past and that’s what I tried to do.