After four successive defeats, the Mumbai Indians finally found their mojo back to register first win in this year’s Indian Premier League, beating the Royal Challengers Bangalore by 18 runs.
The top-order of Mumbai Indians played instrumental role in powering them to a massive 209, which proved to be a tough for Bangalore to chase down. Mumbai also started their bowling on a positive note by knotting both Chris Gayle and Manvinder Bisla in the first five overs.
Earlier, after put into bat, Mumbai made a positive start with Lendl Simmons and Parthiv Patel. After the departure of Parthiv, Simmons combined with Unmukt Chand and made a crucial 72-run partnership for the second wicket.
Both Simmons and Chand, meanwhile, completed their fifties to put Mumbai on course of a massive total. Chand, in particular, looked in fine touch and hit some cleaners in his glorious innings.
Chand made a 63-run partnership for the third wicket with Rohit Sharma, who upped the ante in the final overs of the innings. Rohit was unfortunate not to complete his fifty, but he looked solid during his time at the crease.
Bangalore, meanwhile, pulled things back through David Wiese, who took three wickets in the penultimate over of the innings. But, Hardik Pandya made a six-ball 16 to help Mumbai cross 200 runs mark.
The chase was always going to be tough for the Royal Challengers and it become tougher when the Mumbai Indians bowlers were right on the money from the ball one.
Harbhajan Singh capitalised on the pressure created from other end and dismissed Bisla and Gayle cheaply. But, RCB didn’t go down without putting up a fight with AB de Villiers, who made a 11-ball 41.
Jasprit Bumrah dismissed de Villiers to end RCB’s resistance and after that it was just a matter of time for Mumbai to close down the game, despite Wiese’s cameo at the end.
