IPL 2018, RCB vs MI: Three reasons why Mumbai Indians lost

The Virat Kohli led Royal Challengers Bangalore took on Rohit Sharma’s Mumbai Indians in the 31st match of the Indian Premier League. The game was held at the iconic Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore. Both the teams were desperate for a win as both of them had lost 5 out of their first 7 games of the tournament.

MI won the toss and elected to field first. RCB lost the wicket of Quinton De Kock early but Manan Vohra, Brendon McCullum and Virat Kohli’s cameos kept them alive in the game. Hardik Pandya’s 3-wickets over completely outcasted RCB but all thanks to CDG blitz, RCB were able to put up a respectable score of 166 runs in 20 overs.

MI were not off to a good start as they lost their top 3 early. Although the Pandya brothers kept hopes alive for MI it was disappointing for the Blue Army fans as their team lost the match by 3 wickets.

Here we look at the 3 reasons why MI lost the match.

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#3 Giving 66 runs in 3 respective overs

Whenever the momentum started to shift towards MI, the RCB batsman used to make a strong comeback. Right from the 4th over where RCB were on the score of 11 runs in 3 overs, Rohit Sharma handed the ball to JP Duminy.

This decision didn’t come off well as Manan Vohra struck 4 consecutive boundaries in this over and took the score to 33 runs in 4 overs. Just like the 4th over, the RCB batsmen scored 20 and 24 runs from the 11th and 20th overs respectively and put MI on the backfoot.

#2 Umesh Yadav’s Double-Wicket Over

MI were looking to build a partnership as Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav were at the crease after losing the wicket of Ishan Kishan. Just then, Virat Kohli gave the ball to Umesh Yadav in the 3rd over. And the decision paid off.

Umesh Yadav didn’t disappoint his captain as he took the wicket Suryakumar Yadav on the first ball and Rohit Sharma’s on the second ball of the over. This over shifted the momentum back to RCB as MI were not able to make a statement from there.

#1 JP Duminy’s slow knock

Chasing 168 runs in 20 overs, MI didn’t have a good start as they lost their 3 wickets early. Hardik Pandya and JP Duminy were at the crease to rescue the Mumbai Indians.

While Hardik Pandya from one end was looking for boundaries during his innings, JP Duminy went for a typical Test knock and scored 23 runs in 29 balls. This increased the RRR very much and made it very difficult for the next batsmen to chase down the target.