IPL 2018, RR vs MI: 3 things you might have missed
The second match of the doubleheader this Sunday in the IPL saw a battle between two teams in the bottom half of the table. Mumbai Indians were upbeat after registering their first win of the tournament in their last match against Royal Challengers Bangalore and opted to bat first after winning the toss on a good batting strip.
Mumbai Indians posted 167 runs on the board, despite looking good for 200 at one stage, but thanks to an impressive bowling display from debutant Jofra Archer for the RR, scalping three wickets in the final over, MI's total was much lesser than they would've expected. Rajasthan Royals looked comfortable in the chase and were cruising along, until Jasprit Bumrah triggered a collapse in the 14th over.
However, they managed to scrape through to win, thanks to a brilliant cameo from Krishnappa Gowtham, smashing 33 runs in no time and finished the match with a gigantic six off Hardik Pandya handing yet an another last over defeat for Mumbai Indians. We take a look at the three unnoticed things from the match which had a considerable impact on the end result.
#1 Kulkarni's three-over spell
Losing the toss and asked to bowl on good batting wicket, Dhawal Kulkarni having dropped last game, made a dream start to his side by removing dangerous Evin Lewis for a golden duck with a lovely inswinging delivery which shattered the stumps coming off an inside edge. Then he followed suit from Deepak Chahar in the previous game and asked to bowl through the powerplay in a bid to prize few more wickets. But positive counterattacking batting from Suryakumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan arrested any further impact from the swing bowler and smashed 18 runs off his 3rd over inside powerplay. The young batting pair never looked back and smashed the bowling to all parts of the ground stitching an impressive 129 partnership.