Hello and a warm welcome everyone to yet another blog on the daily matches of the ongoing IPL season. In this blog, I will cover the two games which happened yesterday, MI vs. DC and LSG vs. GT. So let’s get started and enjoy a good read!
20. Mumbai Indians VS Delhi Capitals | Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai
Rishabh Pant won the toss and opted to field first in the first game at the Wankhede. Both the MI openers were superb from ball one and gave the perfect foundation to the middle order to give a big score for MI. But the openers fell to Axar and Surya departed for a duck, leaving MI in a dicey situation on a good Wankhede track for batting. Hardik played an underwhelming 39 of 33 but Tim David was going big and ended up getting 45. MI were 202 in the 19th over but the last over went for 32 by the bat of Romario Shepheard, who took Nortje to the cleaners every ball to give MI, from nowhere a huge 234. The chase started with Warner departing early and Shaw and Porel stabilised the innings. But they were too slow as Bumrah was brilliant once again, smartly deceiving the batters. A late charge by Stubbs wasn’t enough as wickets kept tumbling on the other end as Coetzee joined the party and got 4 wickets to give MI their first win by 29 runs.
In an even-steady game, I feel Hardik Pandya needs to be more aggressive with the bat, and he did even cost the game for his team during their historic chase of 278. Surya has just arrived at the IPL and is playing for the first time this year, so there is a lot of time for him to settle since the tournament has just started. For DC, Nortje is a big concern as he had cost the game for the Capitals in Jaipur against the Royals and here as well, getting hit for 4 sixes and 2 fours in the last over is just not acceptable. So he needs to improve. Other than that, Porel and Shaw had to change to top gear at some point but were unable to do so mainly because of the brilliance of Bumrah, as he got Shaw with a sizzling Yorker. But the Capitals will be pleased with the efforts of Tristan Stubbs in the last two encounters as he scored fifties on both occasions. So with that said, the only difference I would say between the two teams is the last over of the MI innings, had it gone for 15 runs less, I feel DC could have chased, but credit to Shepheard for going into beast mode in the end. This marks the first game of the season for MI and with Surya also in, they look like a solid team now. For the Capitals, they need to improve their bowling, especially Nortje and while chasing huge totals, the batters need to speed up early on…
21. Lucknow Super Giants VS Gujarat Giants | Ekana Cricket Stadium, Lucknow
KL Rahul won the toss and opted to bat first mainly because of LSG’s amazing record of batting first, with a win percentage of over 85%. But the innings started poorly as Umesh Yadav removed the in-form de Kock and Padikkal, who has struggled so far in the IPL. Slow and steady knocks by KL Rahul, and Marcus Stoinis, who hit a valuable 50 for his side and some good knocks from Pooran and Badoni gave the Super Giants an under-par 163. The Titans were off to a good and steady start with Sudharsan, the opener again pitched in and played a beautiful 31. But his partner, Gill, struggled and once he fell, the innings completely collapsed with Krunal Pandya picking up wickets for fun and then came Yash Thakur to wrap up the innings, and picked up a superb five-fer, which all cumulated to a huge LSG victory by 33 runs.
In LSG’s first win against GT in the IPL, the batting by both teams was pretty chaotic on a pretty good Ekana wicket, I think the par-score could have been about 170-180 as said by Shubman Gill after the loss that he was happy that his team restricted LSG in the first innings. But when the Super Giants score more than 160 batting first, no matter what, the bowlers defend the total for KL comfortably. As I said the Titans started superbly but the defining moment I think was Bishnoi’s unreal catch of Williamson and then Krunal Pandya took the initiative forward and ripped through the GT batting, but the standout talent was Yash Thakur, who took a superb five-fer, finishing the GT middle order and tail, but what makes this five-fer even more special was LSG bullet bowler, Mayank Yadav was injured but still he carried the LSG pace attack and gave his team a memorable win. So as I said, no matter how the pitch is and even if a 160+ score is under par, the LSG bowlers somehow salvage a win for KL and it’s almost being a habit for him to bat first in any wicket. So the Titans are suffering without Miller, while the LSG bowlers can defend almost any total the batters get…
But don’t anywhere as there is another blog released right after this one, about the CSKvKKR match, so please check it out.