Krunal Pandya is surprised to have won the Man of the Match award

Krunal Pandya of Mumbai Indians, who was exceptional with the ball last night, said that he is surprised to be awarded as the ‘Man of the Match’, since nowadays mostly the award goes to the batsmen. Mumbai Indians beat Royal Challengers Bangalore in the match by 6 wickets after a late flourish from Kieron Pollard and Jos Buttler.

Krunal said, “Yeah [I was surprised] that a bowler got the Man of the Match in this format. However, I am very happy the way I bowled today. Getting a result in our favour was like icing on the cake,”

“Actually, the wicket was not a normal Bangalore wicket. Today it was on a slower side. The ball was gripping slightly, so when we went into bat our plan was to keep wickets at the back end, and 150 runs target here is gettable because of the smaller size of the ground.” He added.

KL Rahul, who was the top scorer for Royal Challengers Bangalore said Mumbai Indians (MI) benefited as the pitch at the Chinnaswamy Stadium had eased out in the second half. “Having lost Virat and Chris early, we had to change the batting strategy. The wicket was a bit slower on the side and it was not easy to go there and start hitting straight away.”

“We discussed in the middle to stick on and build a partnership, and may be after 10 overs decide on a target. Unfortunately, AB de Villiers got out, but we were happy to have posted 150 odd runs. Obviously, in the second half, the wicket became a little bit easy for batting,” Rahul added.

Asked about Chris Gayle, who is struggling for form at the moment, Rahul said, “In this game, we decided on Chris to open the innings as he is a dangerous batsman, and we all know that. If he fires he can get us 250 runs on any wicket and any ground. But that doesn’t happen as always.”

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