IPL 9, Match 14 Review: Rohit Sharma routes Mumbai to a composed victory over the Challengers

Mumbai Indians finally manage to secure a victory at home as the IPL season trend of winning the toss, bowling first and winning the match continues. It was Rohit Sharma’s game right from the toss, where Virat Kohli called the wrong side. Rohit got to make the call and asked Royal Challengers Bangalore to bat first. His bowling changes worked well, Mithcell McClenaghan gave them the first breakthrough. He brought in rookie Krunal Pandya against the flowing pair of Virat and AB de Villiers, he finished the over accounting for both the wickets and gave Mumbai some breathing space. When he walked out to bat, his edges found the fence and not the fielders. And once you have that push of luck, more often than not you end up on the winning side and Mumbai did manage to chase down 170 quite comfortably with 6 wickets in hand, powered by a 62 off 44 by the skipper.

Coming into the game both the teams were ruffled up with defeats to the hands of less likely opponents. Royal Challengers were staggered by the brilliance of Quinton de Kock who not only scored the first hundred of IPL 9 but also ensured DD continued the winning run. Mumbai Indians, on the other hand, were decimated by David Warner who single-handedly took Sunrisers Hyderabad over the line.

There were calls for changes while Mumbai just chose to swap out Martin Guptill for Kieron Pollard who was fit again after suffering from food poisoning which kept him out the last match. RCB made as many as 6 changes in their XI. The big hitter from Australia Travis Head was given a debut since Chris Gayle flew back home on a paternal leave. Challengers left out David Wiese, Kedar Jadhav, Parvez Rasool, Yuzvendra Chahal and S Arvind and brought in Kane Richardson, KL Rahul, Iqbal Abdullah, Stuart Binny and Varun Aaron.

Skipper Kohli who lost the third toss in a row walked out to open with Rahul for company. The Karnataka batsman was intimidated by Mumbai’s Kiwi pacer Mitchell McClenaghan who adopted the short ball strategy against the opener, despite failing miserably against SRH as Warner whacked them all around the park. Rahul was shaken up by a particular delivery that hit him on his helmet, but that proved a wake-up call and he hit the pacer for a couple of sixes and a four to respond, but perished on the very next ball and McClenaghan had the last laugh.

Virat and AB de Villiers were once again in the middle and had to not only hold on the inning together but also push the scoring rate. It was one of those days for the skipper when the shots were not really coming out well; he had also struggled first up against the swinging ball as Southee took the ball away from him. Kohli perished to the Krunal Pandya who after impressing with the bat in the last couple of games, delivered with the ball this time. He wanted to go downtown but didn’t really get to the pitch of the ball and it just managed to reach the long-off fielder. AB after hitting a few earlier also fell on the last ball of the same over coming down the wicket and missing it, Parthiv took little time to whip the bails off and he was well short of his crease. This was that one over which really changed the dimensions of the RCB innings and probably proved the difference between 200 and 170.

Despite all that the Royal Challengers innings got a push towards the end as Travis Head and their little dynamite Sarfaraz Khan hit a few big shots. Head scored 37 off 24 with a couple of sixes and fours, Sarfaraz also hit as many boundary shots and departed after scoring 28 from 18 balls. For Mumbai Indian pacer Jasprit Bumrah was the pick of the bowlers who got rid of Shane Watson before he could cause real damage and then in the last over removed Sarfaraz and Stuart Binny off successive deliveries to finish with figures of 4-0-31-3.

Mumbai also had a poor start as Parthiv top edged a Richarson delivery and AB completed the formalities at point. They stuck with Ambati Rayudu at no. 3 and it paid off as he and Rohit put up a stabilizing and directing 60 odd runs partnership. Though Rayudu was out of patience in the 11th over and threw his wicket after scoring 31, MI were well on course of a victory with RGS stationed at the other end playing his shots, with sheer laze and elegance. Jos Buttler played his part quite well scoring 28 with a strike rate of 200 and ensured there was no pressure of the scoring rate.

Rohit Sharma played one shot too many off the RCB left-arm spinner Iqbal Abdulla (3/40) who did for his team what Krunal did for MI and was back to the dug-out with 61 runs still to be scored. He might have trusted the big man Kieron Pollard and their internal rockstar Hardik Pandya to hit them through the target. Pollard who hadn’t really fired in the season launched four maximums and three boundaries to take off with 40 in 19 balls and landed Mumbai over the line quite comprehensively. This should give MI lot of confidence while pointing to the Challengers that multitudinous change in the lineup isn’t the winning trick.

Brief Scores:

RCB – 170/7 in 20 overs (Travis Head 37; J Bumrah 3/31)

MI – 171/4 in 18 overs (RG Sharma 62; I Abdulla 3/40)

Man of the Match: Rohit Sharma

How did Twitter react through the game? – Twitter Reactions: Mumbai Indians register first victory at their fortress in IPL 9