Mumbai Indians beat Royal Challengers Bangalore for the second time this season. It took a brilliant effort from our bowlers to restrict RCB and not let them reach the par score. We lost quick wickets but Ambati Rayudu did well to hold the innings together with his knock of 44. We did well to bounce back from a big defeat against SRH. “I think the place where we are struggling is, our opening partnership. If we get it right, more people can play with freedom. It has not been happening since quite a few games. In the game against SRH, the same thing happened and we lost a few more wickets. My job this tournament has been to make sure we don’t lose any wickets, and lay a platform for the team,” said Ambati Rayudu.

Kieron Pollard did well to accelerate the scoring rate and stay until the end to win it for MI. Reacting to his innings, Rayudu said, “Yeah he has been doing that for us, for many years. We have had a lot of partnership over the years. Today during the strategic timeout he told me that it’s been a long time since we batted together, and after the strategic time out I got out and when I was walking back, I looked at him and he was laughing at me. Yeah these things happen. But I am happy with the way we are playing.”

We have a history of bouncing back from the toughest situations to qualify for the playoffs. Rayudu said, “We brought this situation upon us and it is up to us to get out of this situation and qualify with a little ease, rather than chasing 190 runs off 13 overs.”

Our bowlers have been doing a good job throughout the tournament. They did well to restrict the dangerous RCB to a competitive total. “They did a tremendous job and the conditions also played an important role in that. We were a little surprised that with their batting line-up, scored just 151. It was a kind of dampening effect on their batting line-up as we were expecting a score of 220,” said an elated Rayudu.

Quotes taken from Ambati Rayudu’s interview to IPLT20.com