The Wankhede stadium was buzzing with excitement and anticipation as the Mumbai Indians faced the Royal Challengers Bangalore at their fortress. RCB lost their last match even after putting up a total of 191 runs. MI were also coming in from the back of a loss and were looking to change their current trend. It was an interesting clash on the cards as MI won the toss and chose to bowl first.

KL Rahul opened the batting for RCB alongside Virat Kohli as Chris Gayle is not available for two matches. Rahul made an explosive start to the innings as he hit Mitchell McClenaghan for two sixes and a boundary. McClenaghan got his sweet revenge in the same over as Rahul nicked it to the first slip. Kohli and Ab de Villiers picked from where they left off against DD as they put on a partnership of 59 runs in 33 balls. Krunal Pandya who had been giving good performances in the last two matches came in to bowl his second over and turned the match around as he picked up one of the most dangerous pairs in world cricket. First to go back was Kohli who was caught at long off trying to go over the top. De Villiers was caught out of his crease as the bails were removed by Parthiv Patel. Sarfaraz Khan and Travis Head played a good cameo and put up a partnership of 63 runs as RCB managed to reach a total of 170 runs for the loss of 7 wickets.

Mumbai Indians had a tricky task as they had to make sure they didn’t lose wickets in cluster also, they had to maintain a healthy run rate to chase down the target. Mumbai Indians lost Patel early in the innings as he top edged a bouncer. Ambati Rayudu who joined the captain in the middle played a responsible innings as they put on a partnership of 76 runs off 55 balls. Iqbal Abdulla tried to get RCB back into the game by getting regular wickets but they never managed to arrest their free flow of runs. Rohit Sharma played the role of an anchor and finished his innings at 62 off 44 balls. It was Kieron Pollard’s turn to finish the game for the champions which he rightly did, with a blistering knock of 40 from 19 deliveries. MI won the game by 6 wickets with 2 overs to spare. The champions will find their performance very satisfying as their efforts bore fruits in all the three departments, batting, bowling and fielding. MI would like to keep up this performance as they go into the next game against Delhi Daredevils on 23rd April.