IPL 2017, MI vs RCB: 5 things that went wrong for RCB
Mumbai Indians registered a comfortable five-wicket victory over the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the first match of the double-header at the Wankhede Stadium. The skipper of Royal Challengers Bangalore, Virat Kohli won the toss and elected to bat first in order to give his struggling batting unit first use of the hard surface on offer.
The star-studded batting unit of the Royal Challengers Bangalore has failed to live up to expectations in the tournament and their top order woes continued as they lost half their side with just 108 runs on the board. The Challengers were bailed out by a crucial sixth-wicket partnership of 54 runs between Kedar Jadhav and Pawan Negi. The late surge by the duo ensured that the Bangalore outfit reach a respectable 162 runs in the first innings.
In reply, the Mumbai Indians chased down the target in the last over of the innings, courtesy a master class from their captain, Rohit Sharma. The stylish right-hander guided his team in the crucial run chase by scoring a match winning 56 off 37 deliveries.
Take a look at five mistakes committed by Kohli and his men in this contest:
#1 Persisting with Travis Head over Gayle
Chris Gayle is regarded as the most destructive batsman in the shortest format of the game. The charismatic left-hander has proved his worth time and again not only for the Royal Challengers Bangalore but also for West Indies at the international level. The 37-year-old has been one of the mainstays in the batting unit for the Bangalore-based franchise and his contributions at the top of the order in the last edition of the tournament were vital in helping his side reach the finals.
A nightmare for any bowling unit, Gayle has the ability to single-handedly take the game away from the opposition with his sheer power and big hitting skills. Although Gayle has been short of runs in this competition, he would have been more than useful on the batting paradise on offer at the Wankhede Stadium.
The management has continued to keep faith with Travis Head ahead of Gayle as one of their foreign players which has not yielded any result so far in the tournament. The Australian is enduring a poor run in this competition and has just managed to score 74 runs in his five matches.
The southpaw has failed to acclimatise to the slow nature of the wickets on offer in the tournament and his dismal run at the top of the order has been a concern for the Challengers. He failed to get going in today’s encounter and was eventually dismissed for 12 off 15 deliveries.
It was a strange decision by the management of the Challengers to persist with Head over the experienced Gayle and this was one of the crucial reasons for their downfall in this encounter.