Supposed to be the best contest of the tournament so far, the matchup between Delhi Capitals and Mumbai Indians turned out to be rather anti-climatic as the defending champions thumped the table-toppers by five wickets.
The game was already finished by the 15th over of the second innings when Suryakumar Yadav added crucial runs with both Quinton de Kock and Ishan Kishan to take his team near the target. Chasing a modest target of 163, Mumbai were 130/3 after 15th over with just 33 needed from 30 balls. But the game didn’t quite end in easily as the lower order Mumbai batsmen almost made a mess of it before a Krunal Pandya four clinched it for the Rohit Sharma led side.
Earlier choosing to bat first after winning the toss, Delhi couldn’t quite get to a total that they would have liked on the Abu Dhabi track. Hampered by injury to Rishabh Pant and therefore change being made in the successful playing 11 with last match hero Shimron Hetmyer being pulled out, Delhi could only score 162 in their allotted overs.
Shikhar Dhawan was criticised for slow batting as he hit a 69 off 52 balls while Marcus Stoinis, the man in form for the Capitals got run out, giving Mumbai spinners a chance to block the flow of runs and they did it with Krunal leading the way.
Speaking on the occasion of the post-match ceremony, winning captain Rohit Sharma said, “The kind of cricket we are playing gives us a lot of confidence. It's important to have momentum with us, and it was a perfect day for us, getting those crucial two points.”
Pointing out the mistake of not being able to close in the game well, Rohit said, “Clinical with the bat, but not so much towards the end. We need one set batsman to finish off the game in general. “ Saying that he doesn’t want to ‘point fingers because chasing has been difficult in this tournament’, the 33-year-old asked the batsmen to buck up.
Underscoring the importance of a long and quick partnership in the 20 over format, the Mumbaikar said, “We need to come out and play good cricket and keep a calm head while chasing. It's important to have partnerships and we did that today, which got us over the line.”
On the other hand, it was only the second experience for Shreyas Iyer to be on the losing side in this year’s IPL. Reacting to the loss Iyer admitted that his team lagged behind in terms of runs. “I would say 10-15 short, 170-175 on the board would have looked completely different.”
Iyer then further clarified as to what could have been the possible plan if Marcus Stoinis, the all-rounder had not got run out. “We really missed out when Stoinis got out, he was hitting the ball really well and also seeing the ball like a football, that was the main error that we did and something that we really need to work on,” he said.
“Overall they outplayed us in all the departments. We need to work on our mindsets before the next game,” expected the captain.
The 25-year-old praised spinners although expecting them to take more wickets. He also complained that the pitch became more batting-friendly in the second innings. “I thought the spinners were bowling well as the ball was coming onto the bat, it wasn't stopping as it was in the first innings. If we could have squeezed in two more wickets after the powerplay we would have been on top,” said Iyer.
“There are still certain elements we have to work and we will use the break to work on that,” concluded Iyer after having confirmed that it would take at least one week for Rishabh Pant to come back to playing cricket.
For Experts, it was a field day as apart from cricket, Rafael Nadal had won his 20th grand slam, the joint-most by any male Tennis star. Sticking to cricket, most of the experts believed that Delhi Capitals were a few runs short in their innings.
Giving his valuable point on this, veteran analyst Harsha Bhogle said that there were a lot of positives for Mumbai Indians from this game and foremost of them is the fact that there are different match-winners in every match.
Cricketer turned commentator, Aakash Chopra raised yet another valid point saying that senior Mumbai batsman Suryakumar Yadav deserves to play for India.
Former India opener Gautam Gambhir found his new love in Suryakumar, who batted magnificently to score 53 off just 32 balls.
Veteran cricket expert Boria Majumdar called the dismissal of Stoinis as the most crucial moment for the Delhi Capitals where they lost 10-15 runs because of his run-out, as admitted by the captain Shreyas Iyer as well.
Senior Sports journalist Gaurav Kalra, known for his witty tweets, entertained fans once again with his humor as he took a cheeky dig at Shikhar Dhawan who played a lot slower than he usually does.
For both the Mumbai Indians and Capitals, it was a game to learn a lot from. While the Shreyas Iyer led team would be up against Rajasthan Royals in the next encounter while Mumbai will face Kolkata Knight Riders.
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