Mumbai Indians have been facing tough times with the captain change. Hardik Pandya has been booed by fans of Rohit Sharma and MI fans everywhere. The team losing matches and even letting SRH score highest ever in their clash, did add to their troubles. Now, they needed to win against RR to stop the negativity and set the team atmosphere right as well.
Rajasthan Royals, RR won the toss and elected to field first. Trent Boult gave MI a big shock by dismissing Rohit Sharma, Naman Dhir and Dewald Brevis for golden ducks. Ishan Kishan(16) and Tilak Varma(32) also struggled to score freely. RR bowlers just did not allow any MI batter to get into their hitting form.
Hardik Pandya scored 34 runs from 21 balls but got booed by MI fans at Wankhede throughout the match. Tim David ate balls in the death overs and scored only 17 runs from 24 balls. With such a long struggle, MI managed to score only 125/7 in their 20 overs. Trent Boult(3/22) in the first powerplay overs and Yuzvendra Chahal(3/11) in the mid-overs made it tough for MI batters further.
In the chase, RR lost Yashasvi Jaiswal(10), Jos Buttler(13) and Sanju Samson(12) very early for just 48 by the end of powerplay. This season RR’s consistent performer Riyan Parag again came to the rescue. He took his time and played the situation. As he could form a partnership, he slowly started to cut loose and scored 54 runs from just 39 balls to give RR a famous win.
Akash Madhwal(3/20) impressed everyone among the MI bowlers. During the match, fans booing did irritate many MI fielders. Rohit Sharma at one time had to signal to crowd to stop booing. Later, a Hitman fan ran on to the ground and surprised everyone. Well, MI seems to be finding it hard to play as a team with in-house issues and outside fan demands to make Rohit captain again.