Mumbai Indians took on Royal Challengers Bangalore at Chinnaswamy Stadium. The match was important for both sides in terms of the playoff spot, Mumbai Indians was coming into this game after a trashing from Sunrisers Hyderabad while Royal Challengers Bangalore were coming to this game with a narrow one run win overs Kings XI Punjab. So here they both are fighting for an all important win which will further boost their chances to guarantee a playoff spot.
Mumbai Indians won the toss and elected to field, which is not much of a surprise given this side is more suited to chasing a target than setting a target and also a better decision given that RCB have Virat Kohli in their ranks who is an ace chaser. Gayle and Arvind returned to the side in place of Head and Iqbal Abdullah. While Nitesh Rana made his IPL debut for Mumbai Indians in place of Hardik Pandya.
1st Innings
RCB Batting
Gayle and Kohli opened the innings for RCB which saw an end to the successful Kohli & KL Rahul opening combo, but the Gayle-Kohli combo did not last long as Kohli was dismissed in the 2nd over for just 7 runs, his first single digit score after 17 T20 innings. Gayle also did not last long as both the openers combined had a negative WPA of -0.140. The rebuilding phase and some good bowling from Mumbai Indians saw RCB’s WPA drop down as low as 0.239 which means at that point (6th over of 1st innings) RCB had a 23.9% or 24% chance to win the game. Things improved for RCB but DeVilliers’s uncharacteristic slow innings 24 in 27 balls was also not helping RCB.
Shane Watson came and didn’t do much by scoring 15 in 14 balls at a stage when RCB needed to score quick runs, instead it was a patient but well paced knock from KL Rahul and a quick fire performance from Sachin Baby which helped Bangalore to a total of 151 and with that they had a 48.1% of chance of winning the game. Understandable given Chinnaswamy stadium is a predominantly chasing ground and with runs scoring pretty easy here and also not to forget about the weak RCB bowling which concedes way too many runs.
KL Rahul’s holding together innings act of 68 in 53 balls saw him achieve a 0.33 WPA while Sachin Baby’s quick fire 25 in 13 balls saw him achieve a WPA pf 0.105 with the rest of the side being in the negative.
MI Bowling
MI bowling was on the mark today along with their fielding, they bowled well as a unit and their fielding complimented them at every step. McClenhagan’s early breakthrough of Gayle and a good second over was a good start but his second spell which saw him go for 28 runs in 2 overs gave him negative WPA of -0.020. Kunal Pandya’s economical spell and also the fact that he picked up the crucial wicket of AB DeVilliers saw him achieve a positive WPA of 0.264 which was important to the side.
Southee (WPA 0.147) and Harbhajan (WPA 0.009) did their job to keep their end tight by going away for just 46 runs in the 7 overs between them and both together combining for a WPA of 0.156. But the good work done by these two bowlers in terms of a positive WPA was undone by Pollard who went for 23 runs in his only over which not only released the pressure on RCB but also helped them gain momentum, his bowling performance getting a negative WPA of -0.191
2nd Innings
RCB Bowling
Stuart Binny (WPA 0.026) bowled only one over and just gave away 2 runs with no wickets. Didn’t do well but didn’t do bad as well, his good over saw an impact in the next over in which Parthiv Patel had to slash one to get some runs and the wicket went to Arvind. Arvind (WPA 0.191) went on to bowl in his first spell giving away 18 in his first 3 overs and then conceding 5 in the 14th over of the chase with Mumbai Indians needing 74 more runs to win.
Chahal’s economical spell also was important for RCB as not only did he concede just 16 runs but he picked up a wicket which saw him achieve a WPA of 0.016.
The rest of the RCB bowlers had a disastrous day with Aaron, Jordan & Watson undoing all the good work done by their other bowlers. Watson had a WPA of -0.523 which is fair given he gave away 38 runs in 3 overs and gave away 31 of those runs during the last 5 overs of the chase. He was not well supported by Jordan (WPA -0.175) or Aaron (WPA -0.016) who could not keep it tight from their end
MI Batting
Yet another poor start from the openers saw MI in trouble early on in the innings and slow innings from Rohit (WPA -0.036) and Rayudu (WPA -0.038) were not helping MI other than they were just slowly ticking the runs down and keeping the wickets in hand for a late assault from Pollard & Buttler.
Pollard who bowled a match losing over more than made up with it with his batting which saw him score 35 in 19 balls and have a positive WPA of 0.322 which more than made up for his poor bowling, not only did his innings shift the momentum from RCB to MI but helped them win with some balls to spare, at one point RCB was certain winner with 82.4% chance to win the game.
Buttler (WPA 0.415) on the other hand who has a poor debut IPL season decided it was the right time for him to make an impact in the game today and boy did he bring it for his side, scoring 29 runs in 11 balls and being brutal on Aaron and Jordan he shifted the game towards MI and supported Pollard well.
Mumbai Indians won the game comfortably and with that they reached in the top 4, they need 2 more wins to guarantee them a playoff spot. RCB on the other hand have to win their remaining 4 game to have a chance to finish in the top 4 which is going to be tough task, which is improbable but not impossible