The new captain Virat Kohli proved smarter than the seasoned but new captain of MI, Ponting. While Kohli helped RCB end their woes against MI by recording their first-ever win at home after 4 losses, Ponting also failed to end the woes of the highly talented Mumbai Indians batting line up. When Pollard could get only 2 balls to play, then there appears no change in MIs plan despite many setbacks, even with the new captain in the new season. While MI fans would hope that Ponting learns faster and they start winning, RCB fans would be hopeful that the first record win may be the sign of probable first big win in the 2013 IPL final.
RCBs Innings Report
RCB vs MI Preview
Ponting (28 runs in 33 balls) and Tendulkar (23 runs in 19 balls) joined hands to Cricket viewers delight. They gave the first 50-run partnership of IPL for the opening wicket. But MI could score only 62 runs in first 10 overs. MI required 95 runs in next 10 overs with both legends back in pavilion. Karthik was joined by Rohit Sharma, but as has been in the past the pool-of-talent Rohit Sharma again played another irresponsible and ambitious shot and was bowled by Vinay Kumar after scoring run-a-ball 11 runs. The required run rate kept increasing despite Rayudu joining Karthik. Rayudu was the MOM of their last match at Bangalore. But today his run-a-ball 18 runs proved costly as asking run rate went up to 11 runs per over after 15th over.
Both added 60 runs for 4th wicket as Karthik (60 runs in 37 balls with four 6s and 3 boundaries) broke the shackles in the 17th over bowled by Christian. He hit three consecutive sixes and a boundary to take 24 runs from the over. In the next over he hit Muralitharan also for a six and after 18th over MI needed only 17 runs from last two overs with 7 wickets in hand.
But the young captain kept faith in his young pacers. Unadkat bowled 19th over and gave only 7 runs. Vinay Kumar needed to save 10 runs in the last over. He bowled both Karthik and Rayudu on consecutive balls. Pollard was stranded on the other end with 9 required of the last 3 balls. Harbhajan took a single on the hattrick ball of Vinay. Pollard hit the 5th ball of the over and his 1st ball of the inning to the boundary. But it was a matured Vinay Kumar looking for yorker and Pollard could only take a single of the last ball.
RCB registered its first-ever win against Mumbai Indians at home after losing 4 matches in the previous editions.
The bowlers of RCB controlled the game except that one very expensive over of Christian who finished with 42/0 in 4 overs. Unadkat (26/0), Vinay Kumar (27/3), Murali Kartik (24/1), Muralitharan (30/0) all bowled according to the plan of their captain Virat Kohli to keep the fiery MI batting line up under control and register a hard-fought well-deserved 2 runs win.
The match had many heroes from both teams. Bumrah, Harbhajan, Oram, Johnson and Karthik performed well for MI, while all the bowlers of RCB succeeded in defending the decent total to which the Player of the match and Tendulkar of T20 Gayle has made them reach.
Two matches have seen two West Indies players being declared player of the match. Goes well with their T20 World Cup winner title. In the contest between Gayle and Pollard, it would be fair to say while RCB entrusts Gayle, MI still does not know how to use Pollard. No wonder while both remained unbeaten, the man who got time to set eyes took his side to win.
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