IPL 2018, RCB vs MI: Four unnoticed things from the game

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It was a clash between the bottom dwellers of this year’s IPL as the Royal Challengers Bangalore took on the Mumbai Indians at the Chinnaswamy stadium. It was a must-win clash for both the teams.

Rohit Sharma won the toss and elected to field first. RCB had a good start as Manan Vohra took charge in the powerplay. A 60 run partnership between Virat Kohli and Brendon McCullum ensured that RCB were well on their way to cross 180 but a brilliant triple wicket over by Hardik Pandya applied the brakes on the scoring rate.Some lusty hitting in the last over by Colin de Grandhomme dragged RCB to a competitive score of 167.

In reply, Mumbai got off to a disastrous start as they lost their top order for just 21 runs. However, an excellent partnership between the Pandya brothers kept them in the game. But some excellent death over bowling by Mohammad Siraj and Tim Southee ensured that RCB won the contest by 14 runs. Sportskeeda takes a look at some of the things that the fans might have missed in today’s game.

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#1 Virat Kohli arrives too late at the crease

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It is a well-known fact that in T20 cricket your best batsman should bat the maximum number of overs. Hence, teams employ their best batsman in the top order. RCB has also followed this funda in the past by sending out Virat as an opener.

However, RCB has got too many opening batsmen this season. Manan Vohra, Brendon McCullum, Quinton De Kock all are established opening batsmen. In trying to accommodate all of them at the top, the team management made Kohli bat at no. 4 today.

It turned out to be a blunder of sorts as Virat came to bat at the crease only in the 8th over. RCB’s team management would do well by making Kohli bat in the top 3 in future.

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