In a nutshell
Captain Kohli finally made his way back to the Royal Challenger’s Bangalore team, but despite him top-scoring in the first innings with 62 runs, Bangalore could muster only 142 runs. The Mumbai Indians had a scare when Samuel Badree took a hat-trick in the third over of the second innings, but eventually recovered to win the match that swung wildly between the two teams.
How it unfolded
Just how wild this match was can be seen in the win probability chart of this match:
Win probability of Royal Challengers Bangalore: IPL 2017 Match 12
Mumbai Indians won the toss and elected to field first, which in hindsight turned out to be a good decision on a pitch that did not allow easy scoring for the batsmen. Virat Kohli opened with Chris Gayle, and the two shared a solid partnership for the first wicket. When Gayle departed for 22 runs in the 10th over, Bangalore had put up 63 runs on the scoreboard. This was slow by the standards of Kohli and Gayle, but with AB de Villiers coming to bat, the fan faithful at the Chinnaswamy Ground expected some serious fireworks. However, in a separate attempt to accelerate the scoring rate, both Kohli and de Villiers got out within six balls of each other in the death overs. After their dismissal, not a single boundary was scored by Bangalore. Mumbai Indians gave an excellent demonstration of tight death-over bowling that saw Bangalore’s win probability fall from 73% in the 15th over to 28% at the end of first innings.
Whereas the Royal Challenger’s batsmen were slowly strangled by the Mumbai Indian’s bowlers, the Indians batsmen in turn were swept away by an avalanche within the first three overs of the second innings. Stuart Binny got rid of opener Jos Buttler in the second innings, but it was Badree who really left Mumbai shell-shocked. His hat-trick in the third over claimed Parthiv Patel, Mitchell McClenaghan and Rohit Sharma. By the end of the powerplay, Mumbai Indians were teetering at a mere ten runs and four wickets down. At the end of eight over, they lost Nitish Rana to – who else – Badree again. At this time, our win probability chart was showing Bangalore’s win probability as 100%. Unfortunately, Mumbai could not capitalize on the excellent start that Badree gave to them. Keiron Pollard and Krunal Pandya steered the chase of Mumbai steadily. The low target definitely gave them the breathing room and they were able to keep the required scoring rate to a manageable level. Pollard got out in the 18th over, but the Pandya brothers ensured that they took Mumbai to victory with no further hiccups.
Where the game was won
The Mumbai Indians bowlers’ death bowling ensured that the Bangalore’s explosive batting line-up were not able to set a big target to chase. Thus, even when Mumbai were down five wickets in the second innings, they had enough room to maneuver the chase.
The 93 runs partnership between Pollard and Krunal Pandya in the second innings took Mumbai out of a precarious situation. Had Bangalore took out one of the batsmen early in the partnership, the result of the match could have been very different. However, Mumbai could not break the partnership between the two and paid a heavy price for it.
What this means for the tournament
Having successfully chased in their last three matches, the Mumbai Indians now find themselves at the top of the points table. On the other hand, Royal Challengers Bangalore failed to put up an above-par score for the second time in a row, and with just win in hand they are now the third-last team.
Takeaways
The irony with Royal Challengers Bangalore is that they have some of the best hard-hitters in Cricket: Chris Gayle, AB de Villiers, and now Kohli as well, yet in their last three matches they have failed to put up a score north of 160. The inconsistent performance is reminiscent of their performance in the previous seasons, where despite having a talented roster, they failed to emerge as the champions. Bangalore will hope that Kohli’s return will fire up the team and in the next few matches they will be able to start a winning streak.
The Mumbai Indians on the other hand have built a nice momentum for themselves with a three match winning streak. They did see a top-order collapse in today’s match, but they will be hoping that it was a one-off thing. Their bowlers have done quite well to restrict the opposition to reasonable first innings total in the past two matches, and they will be banking on their continued good performance in the coming matches as well.