The first 10 days of IPL 2015 have been miserable for Mumbai Indians. They've traveled from venue to venue and ended up second best. They have lost four games in a row and one of their most important overseas batsmen to injury. Their batting looks overly reliant on the crisp hitting of their captain Rohit Sharma and Kieron Pollard's brutality. Their domestic talent hasn't stood up, their captain has looked at a loss for ways to motivate his struggling unit and the fielding has left Jonty Rhodes grimacing from the sidelines. Considering the financial clout behind Mumbai Indians, as well as the glittering assembly line of coaching staff and mentors in the dugout, the tag of basement dwellers on the IPL 2015 points table stinks of abject failure.
Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Mumbai Indians, 16th Match - Live Cricket Score, Commentary
RCB have problems of their own. Chris Gayle did what he usually does in IPL games and gave them a win in their opener before the all-too-familiar bowling woes were badly exposed by the David-Dhawan combo against SRH. Usually known to do well in front of a raucous home fans at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, they'll hope to turn it around and pile on the agony on the visitors. They'll play a string of games this week and will like nothing better than to start on a winning note.
Malinga bowling the 19th over all but sealed the game in MI's favour. The slinger from Sri Lanka conceded just seven runs leaving RCB to get 28 off the last over bowled by Kieron Pollard. When Abdulla was run out off the first ball of the last over and Wiese played and missed the second, the game was sealed. But full marks for effort from Wiese (47*) and Abdulla (20) who added 58 off 30 for the seventh wicket. In the end RCB finished with 191-7 giving MI a 18-run win. The win marks Mumbai's first win of the tournament. A timely one at that. Back to the drawing board for RCB.
Cricbuzz sources from the stadium point to a potential inclusion of South African duo David Wiese and Rilee Rossouw. That means, Darren Sammy and Sean Abbott could make way. We'll keep you posted here.
Virat Kohli won the toss and elected to bowl first. Wise decision considering that the batting heavy side usually backs itself in getting one more than it's opposition. Both the teams went through a plethora of changes. Let's see if i get this right
RCB :IN - Wiese, Rossouw (told you so), Manvinder Bisla, Iqbal AbdullaOUT - Sammy, Abbott, Mandeep Singh, Harshal Patel
MI:IN - Unmukt Chand, Mitchell McClenaghan, Bumrah and Hardik Pandya (he was the mystery player whose name Rohit didn't remember at the toss)OUT - Corey Anderson, Pawan Suyal, Suchith and Vinay Kumar (injury)
MI: Simmons, Patel, Chand, Rohit, Rayudu, Pollard, Pandya, H Singh, Bumrah, McClenaghan, Malinga.RCB: Kohli, Gayle, Bisla, Karthik, de Villiers, Rossouw, D Wiese, I Abdulla, A Nechim, V Aaron, Y Chahal
MI: Simmons, Patel, Chand, Rohit, Rayudu, Pollard, Pandya, H Singh, Bumrah, McClenaghan, Malinga.RCB: Kohli, Gayle, Bisla, Karthik, de Villiers, Rossouw, D Wiese, I Abdulla, A Nechim, V Aaron, Y Chahal
Small ground, a charitable bowling attack against a team desperate to win. I say MI will score 191. Tweet your predictions @kausheikh. Go on, get Tweeting!
Twice in two games, RCB conceded a boundary off their first ball. Not this time. Virat Kohli decided to deny the Mumbai any pace to work with and opened with the left-arm spin of Iqbal Abdulla. Nothing new for him. He's donned this role before with KKR in the 2012 season. Just 2 off the first over and the captain was happy, even if only temporarily.
I said temporarily even before Aaron charged in to bowl the second over. The fast bowler was taken for a four and a six by Parthiv and Simmons respectively, and the Mumbai innings got the early push it so dearly needed.
David Wiese and Iqbal Abdulla fought on gamely despite the stands in Bangalore emptying following the de Villiers dismissal. The duo got a six and two fours of a Bumrah over and reduced the equation to 50 off 3 overs.
Wiese continued to play his shots in the next over against Mitchell McClenaghan to keep RCB's faint hopes of pulling off a miracle alive. Wiese picked up three boundaries. The equation has reduced to 35 off 12. Imagine if Gayle or someone at the top had just batted normally. Sigh...