Kings XI Punjab captain George Bailey always has a smile on his face. And having such a charming captain is always a huge bonus for the Kings. Bailey isn’t affected if he wins the toss or loses the toss. According to him, the trip is to go out there and enjoy the game and in their second match of the IPL against the Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede stadium was no different.
Bailey lost the toss, his team asked to bat first and he gladly accepted the decision. He knew that his team has the batsmen who are potential match-winners, but they needed to convert their initial starts to big ones. In fact, he told this to a commentator during the toss.
Thereafter, both his openers – Murali Vijay and Virender Sehwag gave rousing start to the innings and shared a superb stand of 60 runs. Sehwag, in particular, was brutal towards the Mumbai Indians bowlers. But the Delhi dasher got out just when he was set for a big score. Vijay too gave his wicket to Harbhajan Singh after getting set.
Soon, Glenn Maxwell’s lost his wicket and Bailey walked the talk. He got set and remained unbeaten on 61 from 32 deliveries. He led his team from the front and ensured that the Kings were way ahead of the Mumbai team. With the ball, Sandeep Singh made early inroads for his team and was very well support by Australia’s fast bowler Mitchell Johnson. Before the Kings sealed the match in their favour by 18 runs, Harbhajan played a blinder. He struck six sixes and five fours to make 64.
Unfortunately, Harbhajan’s knock, after taking two wickets, wasn’t enough to bail out his team. Because this team is depending heavily on its skipper Rohit Sharma to come good. In their first match against the KKR at the Eden Gardens, Rohit was the lone fighter, but in this match, he got out for a duck. From there, Mumbai kept losing wickets till the big Harbhajan Singh knock happened. From here, Mumbai really need to pull up their socks!
