Published: Apr 14, 2017, 07:40 PM (IST)
Edited: Apr 15, 2017, 09:31 AM (IST)
At M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Mumbai Indians (MI) had an upper hand in the head-to-head encounters against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). MI had ended up victorious in six of seven games at the venue. After putting up only 142 for 5 against a batting-heavy MI in match 12 of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2017, fortunes were unlikely to swing towards RCB. However, Samuel Badree took a hat-trick in the third over and reduced MI to 7 for 4. The top order were back in the dug out, and all RCB had to do was pick a few more wickets and seal the deal. But little did they know that Kieron Pollard would display a magnificent show of character and take MI to a 4-wicket win. Full Cricket Scorecard, RCB vs MI, Match 12
MI registered their third consecutive win after a 7-wicket thrashing against Rising Pune Supergiant in their opener. RCB, on the hand, lost their third match despite their captain Virat Kohli scoring a spectacular 62 in his comeback match. However, it was the same old story for RCB. They failed to perform as a cohesive unit as well as lost the plot when the curtains were almost down for the opposition.
RCB’s key players — Chris Gayle, AB de Villiers, and Kedar Jadhav — added 50 runs off 56 balls. This means had Kohli not stepped up, RCB would have stared down the barrel.
MI bowlers were spot on. They gave away only a boundary and took 4 wickets in the last 32 ball, limiting RCB to meagre score on a track that had little to no venom in it for the bowlers.
MI have a reputation of chasing down any total. As a result, 143 was not that big a task until Badree became the seventh West Indian bowler, in the third over, to take a hat-trick.
Badree first got rid of Parthiv who tried to clear the infield but found Chris Gayle at cover. In came McClenaghan at No. 3 as pinch-hitter. He played a mindless shot to long-on and threw away his wicket. When Rohit was at the strike, it was quite evident that Badree would ball a wrong’ un. Badree knocked over Rohit and became only the third leg-spinner to take a hat-trick.
MI needed another 136 off 104. At the crease were Pollard and Nitish Rana. Kohli had men around the bat to put MI in further trouble. A few more wickets would have ended the match earlier than expected. RCB were successful to sent Rana packing for a mere 11.
MI registered only 33 runs, losing half the side. In came Krunal Pandya and added 93 runs for the sixth wicket. Pollard had done it in the past, but Krunal’s role to rotate strike and give maximum strike to his senior partner was commendable. Krunal scored an unbeaten 37 off 30 and took his team over the line.
In the process, Pollard became the first player to complete 7,000 runs in T20 cricket without scoring a hundred.
Brief score:
Royal Challengers 142 for 5 in 20 overs (Chris Gayle 22, Virat Kohli 62; Mitchell McClenaghan 2 for 20) lost to Mumbai Indians 145 for 6 in 18.5 overs (Kieron Pollard 70, Krunal Pandya 37; Samuel Badree 4 for 9) by 4 wickets.
