This season’s play-offs have ended and the two teams remaining in one of the biggest league’s in the world, Rising Pune Supergiants will face Mumbai Indians on Sunday at Rajiv Gandhi Stadium, Hyderabad.
It is certain that neutral fans did not get much from the play-offs. On other hand fans of the winning team are all happy. But the three of the matches did not stand to the standards of the league.
In the first play-off Rising Pune Supergiants thrashed Mumbai Indians. In the eliminators Sunrisers Hyderabad were unfortunate as the rain halted the match for hours and Kolkata Knight Riders ended winning the match with the Duckworth-Lewis method (DLS). Even the final play-off between Mumbai Indians and Kolkata Knightriders at Bengaluru was not much exciting, as KKR only managed for a very low score 111/10. The score was disappointing, especially at this point of the match. The team lost all its wickets within 18.5 wickets.
A score of 107 is not much to defend or chase, Mumbai Indians skipper Rohit Sharma (26 off 24 balls) finally managed to score. He was supported by Krunal Pandya (45* off 30 balls). Their partnership ensured the chase was completed without much fuss on a wet field.
After messing up their first chance to enter the finals with a loss at Wankhede to Pune, MI men got everything right, including the toss, as they chased down the below par total in 14.3 overs.
Although Mumbai had the upper hand for most of the part in the match, they did wobble a little, as they lost 3 wickets at the score of 36 in 6 overs. But once Rohit and Krunal settled down, the march was well out of Kolkata’s reach.
It was about 12 nights ago at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, when the crowd witnessed the might of Sunil Narine and Lynn. The 105 off 37 balls was still a fresh memory as the duo came out t bat. But this time KKR did not feast on runs. Instead Mumbai bowlers overwhelmingly outmatched them.
KKR were completely overshadowed by the meticulous Mumbai bowlers, who breezed through the batting line-up.
Jasprit Bumrah kept the batters guessing with his variation of good length balls and peppered it with yorkers and short balls. He even ensured the last over of powerplay was a maiden over with Robin Uthappa's wicket as the incentive.
AMandeep
