IPL 2019: Twitter reacts as Punjab beat Mumbai comfortably by 8 wickets
Mankad, no-ball due to captaincy failure, and a 7-ball over - Ravichandran Ashwin has been in the thick of things but that did not stop him from leading his side to a comfortable victory over three-time champions Mumbai Indians.
After choosing to bowl first, Ashwin, due to an umpiring error, started off the innings with a 7-ball over and ended up conceding boundary off the 7th ball. Mumbai got off to a good start as the openers - Rohit Sharma and Quinton de Kock - added 51 runs for the first wicket.
Rohit's dismissal brought Surya Kumar Yadav into the middle but he went back to the pavilion after a short innings of 11 runs from 6 balls. Inspite of the two dismissals, QDK was solid at his end and scored a fine half-century.
But once de Kock was dimissed off the last ball of the thirteenth over, Mumbai struggled to score quick. Yuvraj Singh and Kieron Pollard scored with a strike-rate below and that added additional pressure on the batsmen to follow.
Pandya brothers, who came in next, tried their to take Mumbai to a respectable total. While Hardik scored a quick-fire 19-ball 31, Krunal could only manage 10 runs. As a result, Mumbai managed to score 176 runs for the loss of 7 wickets in 20 overs.
Kings XI Punjab started the chase in a cautious manner by scoring just 38 runs in 6 overs. After the powerplay, Chris Gayle took the attack to the Mumbai bowlers as KL Rahul struggled to strike big at the other end. Of the 53-run first wicket partnership from 45 balls, the mighty Jamaican scored 40 runs off just 24 balls.
Following Gayle's departure, it was the KXIP's No.3 Mayank Agarwal who took charge of the chase as Rahul played second fiddle. The two Karnataka batsmen were involved in a 64-run partnership in which 43 runs were scored by Agarwal off just 21 balls.
Rahul struggled to time the ball when Gayle and Agarwal were batting but once those two batsmen departed, he looked in fine touch. He went onto score 71 off 57 balls and with the aid of David Miller he helped his side win the match by 8 wickets with 8 balls to spare.
Here's how Twitter reacted to Punjab's comfortable victory over three-time champions Mumbai Indians: