Mumbai Indians registered their first win after 35 days since the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 kicked off. On Saturday night, Rohit Sharma & Co successfully chased down a modest 159-run target, defeating Rajasthan Royals by 5 wickets. Suryakumar Yadav scored a brilliant 51 off 39 deliveries as Mumbai were home with 4 balls to spare.
It was MI’s first win after eight successive defeats and even though the result bears little consequence but it is certainly going to keep the five-time champions in good mental space. Losing is also a kind of habit like winning, albeit a bad one, as with-it self-belief also goes out of the window. Rohit didn’t look one bit of his cheery self when he was cutting his birthday cake and by the end of the day, a win must have felt like a healing balm.
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As Mumbai registered its first win this season, let’s have a look at the talking points of the game:
Buttler’s slow enters: In-form Jos Buttler seemed to be struggling against the Mumbai bowling attack. He scored a half-century and smashed four sixes in a row before getting out for 67 but his ins took off at a very slow rate. His initial struggle was one of the reasons why Rajasthan failed to mount a challenging total.
The remarkable debit of Kumar Kartikeya: MI attack performed way better than they have in the initial games with new inductee left-arm spinner Kumar Kartikeya being extremely impressive in his first outing on the big stage. He registered figures of 1/19 in four overs and bowled nine dot balls and bagged the prized wicket of rival skipper Sanju Samson, who had earlier hit a couple of sixes off Shokeen. More importantly, in 24 deliveries he conceded just a single boundary which spoke volumes about his temperament.
Suryakumar’s belligerent knock: Mumbai Indians were in deep trouble after the early dismissals of captain Rohit Sharma and Ishan Kishan. When the team needed someone to stand up and deliver, it was Suryakumar Yadav who rose to the occasion. He was smooth in his stroke play and his array of shots was a delightful watch. He brought up his fifty with a muscular six over wide long-on. He bagged the man of the match award for playing a match-winning knock.
Miseries of Rohit, Ishan Kishan continue: Rohit’s run of poor scores continued as he tried a slog sweep off Ravichandran Ashwin and offered an easy catch to Daryl Mitchell at square leg. On the other hand, the price tag of Rs 15.25 crore is increasingly seeming like a noose around Ishan Kishan’s (26 of 18 balls) neck as he started well but in desperation to over-compensate mistimed a pull-shot.
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