Talk about ”making a turnaround”, then Mumbai Indians will be the first team to make it into the list. They are proving it time and time again by clinching those crucial victories in the fag-end of the tourney. The brilliant batting effort from Kieron Pollard and the exceptional display of death bowling from Jasprit Bumrah sealed a thriller for Mumbai facing Kings XI Punjab.
Mumbai Indians – Kieron Pollard heroics push Mumbai to 186 despite Tye’s heroics
Initially, it was Ravichandran Ashwin who won the important toss and asked the home side to bat first. Justifying the toss, Kings XI bowlers bowled exceptional lengths to send Evin Lewis, Surya Kumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan for a cheap score.
Despite, Punjab bowlers picked wickets at regular intervals of time, the run rate has always been in the favour of Mumbai as their batsmen found the fence often than not. Rohit Sharma once again disappointed the team while Krunal Pandya did his big to lift the team’s morale.
Just when things looked like slipping down, the brilliance of Kieron Pollard brought the home side back in the game. He knocked the ball in his usual mode to bring up 50 off just 23 balls. However, Ashwin and Tye bowled beautifully to bring back the things in Punjab favour.
Andrew Tye finished with 3rd four-fer of this year ‘s IPL to strengthen his case for the Purple cap while Ashwin bagged two crucial wickets at crunch moment. Despite, both bowled brilliantly, the tail-enders cameo knock boosted Mumbai to post 186 on the board.
Kings XI Punjab – Bumrah seals it for Mumbai despite KL Rahul stunning effort
In reply to the chase, Kings XI openers Chris Gayle and KL Rahul smashed the ball beautifully to find some quick runs on the board. However, Gayle mistimed his slog to walk back to the hut while Australian T20 skipper, Aaron Finch walked surprisingly at number 3 position. He added a brilliant 111 -run partnership for the team to keep the chase alive.
It was going well for the visitors during the chase as KL Rahul and Aaron Finch was well settled in the crease and knocked the boundaries often than not. However, it was Jasprit Bumrah again who turned the tables for Mumbai Indians by scalping the crucial wicket of Aaron Finch.
Once again, Kings XI Punjab sent Axar Patel ahead of the rest of batting order at the crucial juncture of the game. He failed to whack it out right from the start thus handing more pressure on KL Rahul. The classy right-handed batsmen yielded 15 runs off Ben Cutting over to keep the chase on track.
But it was again, Jasprit Bumrah who bowled a fantastic penultimate over that included a prized scalp of KL Rahul as well. His 6 runs over gave McClenaghan to defend 17 runs of the final over. Punjab batsmen managed to fetch 11 runs thus losing the game by 3 runs.
Brief Scores:
Mumbai – 186/8; Kieron Pollard 50, Krunal Pandya 32; Andrew Tye 4/16
Punjab – 183/5; KL Rahul 94, Finch 46; Bumrah 3/15