IPL 2018, RR vs MI: 5 reasons why Mumbai lost
The second game of today’s doubleheader had the Ajinkya Rahane led Rajasthan Royals taking on the Rohit Sharma led Mumbai Indians at the Sawai Man Singh stadium in Jaipur. Rohit won the toss and decided to bat first.
Mumbai got off to a bad start as Evin Lewis departed for a duck but thereafter the dynamic duo of Suryakumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan displayed some brilliant strokeplay to power Mumbai to 130/1 by the 14 overs.
However, Rajasthan’s bowlers made a stellar comeback and Mumbai were restricted to a score of 167.
In reply, Rajasthan got off to a poor start but an excellent partnership between Ben Stokes and Sanju Samson stabilized their innings. Some poor batting thereafter eventually brought the equation down to 43 needed in the last 3 overs.
K Gowtham then played the innings of his life to bring the Royals home with 2 balls to spare. Let us have a look why the 3-time champions Mumbai lost the game.
#1 Failure to finish off the innings
Today’s game had a similar script to the Mumbai-Delhi game where the Mumbai Indians failed to make use of an excellent start. Today as well, after a superb start from Suryakumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan, Mumbai’s middle order crumbled.
Mumbai looked all set to score well in excess of 200, but a flurry of wickets at the end made sure that they could only manage a below par 167.
In fact, Mumbai could only score 37 runs off the last 35 balls of their innings, losing 6 wickets in the process. This collapse had a major say in the final result of the game.