While KXIP play fearlessly for pride from now on, Mumbai Indians will have to fight hard to make it to the playoffs. Kings XI Punjab have struggled right through the tournament to get their combination right, on the other hand Mumbai Indians have done well in patches. But now that we are in the crucial moments of the tournaments where the top 4 teams get decided, MI really need to pull up their socks.
Rohit Sharma won the toss and chose to bat. In the tournament where chasing has been easy and MI have done well by chasing, it was an unexplainable decision to make this choice. This decision soon backfired on MI as No. 2 and No. 3 batsmen departed without scoring a run and Rohit Sharma couldn’t stay long either. The team much difficulty reached the 50 run mark at the end of 12th over thank to N Rana. From there on some resistance was shown by Pollard, Harbhajan, and Krunal Pandya to get the team to a respectable score of 124 in 20 overs.
KXIP didn’t start off their chase well either as Hashim Amla departed for a duck in the first over itself. Saha and Vijay continued batting sensibly thereafter and took their team to a very comfortable position. In the end KXIP won with 3 wickets in hand.
Here’s a list of some interesting numbers and stats from this match –
Lowest Powerplay score this season – Mumbai Indians scored just 21 runs for the loss of 2 wickets in powerplays. This is lowest powerplay score in IPL 2016. This is also 2nd lowest powerplay score for Mumbai Indians ever in IPL.
Best of Stoinis – Marcus Stoinis produced his best bowling spell of 4/15 in this match. His previous best bowling figures in T20 cricket was 3/11, earlier this year. He played a crucial role in restricting MI batsmen in this match.
Failed while batting first – Rohit Sharma has played 4 innings while batting first with an aggregate score of 19 runs and in 7 innings he has chased with total score of 394. Yet he chose to bat after winning the toss.
Another opener duck – A rare occasion when one of the openers from both sides has been dismissed for a duck.
Purple Cap – The Purple Cap now belongs to Mitchell McClenaghan as he now has 16 wickets in this IPL.