There was nothing more Virat Kohli could have asked from debutant Samuel Badree. The West Indies leg-spinner, playing his first Indian Premier League game since donning the Chennai Super Kings jersey way back in 2014, wreaked havoc on Mumbai Indians batsmen, taking 4 for 9 including a sensational hat-trick in his second over. What makes his effort even more incredible is the fact that it came in powerplay and was a maiden over. He had dismissed Parthiv Patel, Mitchell McClenaghan and Rohit Sharma in three successive deliveries to leave Mumbai reeling at 7 for 4 in their pursuit of 142. However, his incredible performance went in vain as Kieron Pollard and Krunal Pandya guided Mumbai to an unlikely win.
Speaking after the match, Badree admitted that it was a special day for him before saying that there were not enough runs on the board.
“Yeah, of course. It is a special day. It was a Good Friday. It was a Good Friday for me. Unfortunately, it was not a Good Friday for the team. I just think we did not have enough runs on the board,” Badree told reporters at the post-match press conference.
“It is a nice feeling to get a hat-trick. To get three wickets in the Powerplay — normally teams chasing lose games but unfortunately, it did not go our way tonight. Tremendous feeling to get a hat-trick but it could have been so much better if we had won,” added the leg-spinner.
Royal Challengers Bangalore went off to a solid start with their openers- Virat Kohli and Chris Gayle- adding 63 runs for the first wicket. But the home team could not capitalise on it and were restricted to 142 for 5.
“We had a good foundation, Chris at the beginning and Virat after that. But I just think we did not score enough runs. Credit needs to be given to Pollard and Krunal the way they batted with maturity,” said Badree.
At 33 for 5 in the eighth over, Mumbai were looking well out of the contest before Pollard struck a magnificent 70 runs off only 47 balls and added 93 runs with Krunal Pandya for the sixth wicket to put Mumbai on track for their third win on the trot.
On Pollard, Badree said, “Yeah, he got some balls in the arc and backed his strengths, which is the ground. He batted with maturity. He showed a lot of guts and character and credit needs to be given to Krunal as well.”
When asked about a good score on that wicket, Badree replied:“It was the pitch, I think it was a bit slow. At the end of the day, 142 was not special. I think we needed an excess of 160. We looked at 160-170 at one stage but did not capitalise on the start we got. All in all, we were a bit under-par with the bat.”