After coming second in their last game against the Chennai Super Kings, Virat Kohli had asked his players to show more courage in press situations and it appeared that the players arrived pumped up from that mantra in the game against the Mumbai Indians.
Kohli walked the talk and took the attack to the opposition bowling attack while the likes of Glenn Maxwell and KS Bharat also followed suit with the best of their explosive abilities.
Their bowlers too turned up high on confidence and eagerness to get back to the winning ways after two losses on the trot. Harshal Patel took a sensation hat-trick that included two fearsome batsmen in Kieron Pollard and Hardik Pandya, and along with Yuzvendra Chahal and Glenn Maxwell reduced Mumbai’s lower order contributions as phone numbers on the scoreboard.
Here, we’ll dissect what the captains made out of the game and how did their plan of action unfolded along with the ideas of experts on how do they see the development and journey of both sides after the game.
Captains’ views
At first, the losing captain, Rohit Sharma conceded that his team has not been at their best in their batting department in this season. He lamented his own wicket against the RCB and said that the moment turned out to be a “game-changing” one for his side.
He also acknowledged that the lack of consistency from the top order has also not helped their cause in this edition and urged the team to recover quickly from unfavourable situations as they found themselves in against the RCB on Sunday night.
However, he commented on the bowling attack for pulling things back in their control after the RCB batting lineup was cruising along and at one time appeared set to go beyond the 180-run mark.
"Thought it was a fantastic bowling effort. Looked like they were going to get 180. The batters just let us down. The opening issue has been happening consistently. We have to make sure that the batters carry on. I played a bat shot today and got out; I felt that was the game-changing moment. We need to find ways to bounce back from whatever situations we are in,” Rohit said in the post-match presentation.
After having a stellar season last year where he plundered bowler for 30 sixes on the way to more than 500 runs, Ishan Kishan is going through a lean patch this season. His numbers have dried up and subsequently, he has been under pressure to perform to the potential and promise he did after swashbuckling performances last year.
However, Rohit came in support of his young player and reiterated that the Mumbai team management will not put him under a lot of pressure and instead they will keep on giving him space and freedom to flourish playing the game in the manner he likes to play with.
“Kishan is a talented player, we just need to understand the freedom he needs, and need to provide him with that. He had a terrific IPL last year... We wanted to give him the opportunity. He is relatively young and making his way into international cricket,” Rohit concluded.
On the other hand, it was almost a perfect game for a very happy Virat Kohli who would not have asked for any better performance from his men. He started the RCB’s charge in batting by playing aggressive start from the word go and he was quite ecstatic at the manner of RCB’s win over the Mumbai Indians.
Kohli scored another half-century and said that Maxwell’s “unbelievable” innings of 56 runs from 37 balls that included sixes on reverse sweeps along with Bharat’s contribution of 32 runs provided RCB with a perfect rhythm in the middle over.
"Very happy, especially the way we won. It was a difficult start when we lost Devdutt. He came in the second over to try and get me out... KS came out and played some amazing shots. He took the pressure off me. Maxi's innings was unbelievable,” Kohli said in the post-match presentation.
The contest also presented many duels at a personal level with Kohli and Ab de Villiers on one side with the bat and Jasprit Bumrah on the side of the fence with the ball. Rating his Indian teammate very highly, Kohli said that batsmen have to try to “stamp authority” in order to have a chance against him otherwise the pacer will run over them in quick time.
“If you don't try and stamp your authority, Bumrah will get over you - that's how good he is. You have to be at you level best,” Kohli addressed the Bumrah challenge.
Harshal Patel repeated his heroics with the ball against the Mumbai Indians by picking up a hat0trick after scalping a five-wicket haul in the first round of the game between the sides in the first phase of IPL 201, and Kohli lauded his achievement that helped RCB take an unassailable advantage over the Rohit Sharma-led side.
He rated his team’s performance a “perfect ten” but did not shy away from pointing out the areas of improvement. He said they should have got 15 runs more than where they finished but chose to back his players to achieve those goals in the coming games.
“I'd give it a perfect ten tonight. We left out 15 [runs] out there... Those are the things where we feel we can get 20-25 extra runs. I went with my gut feel with DC [Christian]... With his experience and change-ups, he bowled an amazing over... What Harshal did was unbelievable,” Kohli concluded.
Experts’ views
One of the most prominent voices in Indian cricket, Harsha Bhogle highlighted the chinks in the armour of the Mumbai Indians while backing the Royal Challengers to qualify through to the next stage.
He also pointed out the fragility in the Mumbai middle order and opined that Kieron Pollard should bat at number five following Suryakumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan in the batting order.
On the other hand, Yuzvendra Chahal, who picked up two important wickets of Ishan Kishan and Quinton de Kock, received high praise from legendary Indian off-spinner Harbhajan Singh. However, he was curious to know the pace at which he bowled his deliveries against the Mumbai Indians.
He also commended Harshal Patel, who picked up a hat-trick and said that the pacer turned the things around for the RCB.
Former Chennai Super Kings batsman Subramaniam Badrinath has made up his mind about the three teams who are certain to advance to the next stage. He picked his former team CSK, Delhi Capitals and RCB as three teams while sharing his anticipation about who could be the fourth side to get to the play-off stage.
The RCB took one more step towards qualifying for the playoff phase albeit after losing two back to back games in the second phase of the tournament while the Mumbai Indians have made it really tough for themselves and only repeating their past glory where they came winning games one after another to the top four positions can propel them to the playoff this time around.