In a lopsided encounter, RR butchered MI as they made joke of a respectable total of 179/9 by chasing it down in just 18.4 overs while losing only one wicket. Things went wrong very quickly for the Mumbai Indians as they lost early wickets, with Rohit Sharma getting out courtesy to a rash shot and impatience while trying to score runs.
Ishan Kishan and Suryakumar Yadav also failed to make any impact. Mohammad Nabi provided some resistance but he too fell after a rather modest knock of 23 off 17, failing to tackle the pressure for which he was sent up the batting order. MI were dismally at 52/4 at 7.3 overs, having lost plenty of wickets, batting at a slow rate and being under great pressure. However, youngsters Tilak Varma and Nehal Wadhera played scintillating knocks to elude MI from that dismal situation.
However, RR pulled things back well to keep MI below 190-200 as Tilak and Nehal fell followed by Hardik Pandya and Tim David failing to deliver, which restricted MI to 179/9.
Following MI’s seesaw innings, RR delivered a video game chase as they lost only one wicket with Yashasvi Jaiswal scoring a phenomenal century, receiving able support from Jos Buttler and Sanju Samson, with even Bumrah being smashed for runs.
Hardik Pandya made a good decision by dropping Romario Shepherd who relapsed into bad batting performances and expensive bowling spells after an aggressive outing of 39 off 10 against DC, bringing in Nehal Wadhera who played very well, especially in a pressure situation. However, his decision to drop Shreyas Gopal despite his decent performances and bringing in Piyush Chawla despite his expensive bowling early this season. Although he was a good wicket taking option in earlier seasons, decisions cannot be made just on the basis of past statistics, present circumstances and performances need to be considered as well.
He also made a bad decision by opting to bat at the toss, despite the fact that the Sawai Mansingh stadium, where the match was being held has most matches being won by the chasing team. It was a schoolboy statistical error from him, even Sanju Samson said that he wanted to bowl first. Hardik threw away the won toss to RR, not even considering how scintillating RR is at chasing, as they have shown in this season, even equalling their own record of the highest successful chase. It is somewhat reminiscent of his previous nonsensical mistakes like Coetzee no-ball review and his wide-ball review. He needs to avoid any kind of basic mistakes he has been and can make.
Hardik Pandya also needs to maintain a bit more stability in changing the playing XI and motivate his team, working on the weak spots. MI need to maintain their team stability and consistency to keep winning and catch up in the race of the play-offs. Meanwhile, RR are strongly cemented at the top of the table with 14 points, being 4 points ahead of even the team(s) closest to them on the points table and are on the brink of qualification. They would surely want to continue with their winning ways and would be aiming to end the league stage in the top 2 of the points table.
