MI faced KKR for the second time this season and beat them in their last home match. KKR openers had a great start to their innings, but the MI bowlers did a good job to restrict them to a score of 174 in spite of poor fielding. Chris felt that the KKR batsman were a few runs short as they did not carry the momentum that they got in the start of the innings. “I think we were 15 runs short with the bat. We got off to a great start but didn’t capitalise on it. In terms of our bowling we didn’t quite execute our plans to our potential. If you miss your lengths you get hit out of the park and that’s what happened. We have got a short time before we face Delhi and we need to turn it around.”

MI won the toss and chose to bowl first as there was dew factor looming in the second half. “When we lost the toss we knew that bowling second would be a bit hard, especially for the spinners who are our strength. It became difficult to grip the ball with the dew coming down and the pitch didn’t offer much purchase to the spinners.”
On Rohit’s performance, Lynn said, “I think every time we have played against him he has scored a 50 or 60. He has done really well against KKR, so we have to work really hard to get him out. He puts a high price on his wicket as he never panics at any stage.”

With the likes of Virat Kolhi and Ab de Villiers redefining T20 batting, batsman like Pollard are different from them. Chris Lynn explains, “The difference is that they bat at the top of the order. So they create a platform for the rest of the team and Pollard comes in down the order and it is not easy to come so late in the innings and play such an innings. So he chips in how much ever he can but it is not as much as an AB or Kohli does.”