Put in to bat, Royal Challengers Bangalore was well placed at 136 for 2 wickets at the end of 16 overs. It was time for the final assault to set up a sizeable target for Mumbai Indians to chase. But they had to deal with two of the finest exponents of death over bowling in the Business. Jasprit Bumrah conceded only eight runs in the 17th over. Moeen Ali had scored 50 runs from 32 balls hitting 5 sixes along the way and had put together a 95 run partnership with AB de Villiers for the third wicket.
Lasith Malinga got the wickets of both Ali and Marcus Stoinis with slower balls. AB de Villiers (75 from 51) scored 22 runs off 8 balls in the over and the next but got run out to a brilliant throw from Pollard in the last over. Malinga thereafter had Akashdeep Nath and Pawan Negi caught by Quinton de Kock and the Royal Challengers inning closed on 171 for seven wickets. Earlier Jason Behrendorff had Virat Kohli caught by de Kock for just 8 runs while Hardik Pandya had Parthiv Patel caught by Yadav for 28 runs.
A target of 172 runs wasn’t by any means a small one for Mumbai Indians. But the three Mumbai Indian speedsters all conceded more than 10 runs per over in their 7 overs. Quinton de Kock (40 off 26 balls) cracked two boundaries in Umesh Yadav’s first over and followed it up by scoring 16 runs in his second. Mumbai Indians were comfortably placed at 67 for no wicket at the end of the power play. It was Moeen Ali who clean bowled Rohit Sharma (28 off 19 balls) and had de Kock trapped leg before in his very first over.
Chahal then had Ishan Kishan stumped by Parthiv Patel when he saw the batsmen coming down the wicket and bowled wide. Kishan had hit a quickfire 21 runs with three sixes. Suryakumar Yadav held the fort with Krunal Pandya till Chahal lured Yadav down the wicket to loft the ball over the boundary only to be caught at long-off. Krunal Pandya never got into his stride and gave mid-wicket a simple catch off Mohammed Siraj while trying to flick the ball.
At the end of the 18th over Hardik Pandya, who had Keiron Pollard for company, needed to score 22 runs to win the match and Pawan Negi was given the ball. Pandya hit Negi’s second ball for a six over long-on. He scored two fours off the next two balls and slogged the fifth over long-on for another six. A no-ball from Negi and a single off the last ball saw Mumbai Indians home with five wickets in hand and an over to spare. Pandya finished with the score of 37 runs off 16 balls. Lasith Malinga had four wickets for 31 runs off his four overs while Pandya’s 1 for 21 off three overs helped Indians restrict Royal challengers in the middle overs.
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