Mumbai Indians

“180-185 would have been a good score,” rued Suryakumar Yadav at the end of a tough loss against the Delhi Capitals. Sameer Rizvi had just played a blinder of an innings coming in at 7 for the loss of two wickets with Delhi in a spot of bother, and SKY, who stood in as Mumbai Indians’ skipper on behalf of the injured Hardik Pandya, was happy to give him the credit.

“Someone coming in like that and batting like the way he batted, I think a lot of credit goes to him. He never let us come into the game. We tried our best to follow all the things what they did in the bowling department, but we couldn't come back,” he said at the post-match presentation.

During MI’s outing with the bat, it was Surya’s afternoon, as he swept his way to yet-another IPL half-century. He walked in at 18/2, joined Rohit Sharma who was timing it superbly, forged a solid 53-run partnership with him and then did well to stitch 37-run another stand with Naman Dhir after Rohit and Sherfane Rutherford fell in succession. 🫡

But then just when the platform was set for the final explosion, with the score at 122/4 in the 16^th over, SKY was trapped LBW by Lungi Ngidi. Naman then upped the ante, but then he too fell for a 21-ball 28 with eight balls left in the innings.

“We fell short by 15-20 runs. I think me and Naman, we both got out at the wrong time during the 16th and 18th over, otherwise we would have at least got above par,” SKY said.

Deepak Chahar, who started off brilliantly with the ball, echoed a similar sentiment of the team being slightly short with the bat, and credited Rizvi for taking the game away.

“We were short. Defending 160 in the afternoon game is a bit difficult. To defend 160, you need to take early wickets. (Sameer) Rizvi played really well. Had we gotten him out early inside the first ten overs, the match could have been really interesting,” Chahar said at the post-match press conference.

“In T20s, wicket-taking deliveries are risky deliveries. If you want to get someone out, you need to pitch it up and bowl at the stumps. But those are risk-taking because the ball doesn’t swing beyond one or two overs. But when you are defending 160, you can’t bowl those deliveries because as a bowler, you just look to bowl dot balls to build pressure on the batters. They were consistently able to hit boundaries. It is not that we bowled badly. We executed most of our plans, but he played good shots and in a chase of 160, one or two big overs can put the other team in front,” he said.

There were plenty of positives for MI to take out of this game though. Rohit’s consistency, SKY finding his purple patch, Bumrah producing a one-run 13^th over, Naman and Mitchell Santner spending time in the middle and finding their finishing groove. As the team flies to Guwahati for a quick turnaround against the Rajasthan Royals, stay assured, the momentum will build and the peak will come at the right time. 👊