IPL 2021: Cricket fraternity reacts as Harshal Patel’s 5/27 for RCB keeps MI to 159/9

Virat Kohli won the toss and chose to bowl first.

The first match of the IPL 2021 began with much excitement as defending champions Mumbai Indians (MI) took on Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai.

These two teams share a good rivalry, with MI coming out on top more often than not. But this time, a miracle happened as Virat Kohli, who is known for losing tosses, called right and decided to bowl first, putting Rohit Sharma’s MI into bat.

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Kyle Jamieson and Rajat Patidar made their IPL debuts for RCB, while Marco Jansen made his debut for MI. Also playing his first match for MI was Chris Lynn, while Dan Christian came back to the RCB fold after 8 years.

MI was looking good for a score of nearby 190 when they started off well with Rohit Sharma (19), Chris Lynn (49), and Suryakumar Yadav (31) adding 94 runs in 11 overs. Lynn smashed 3 sixes and 4 fours in his knock, while Suryakumar hit 4 fours and 1 six.

However, RCB bowlers pulled back the match towards them as MI failed to get the lift-off in the last few overs as Ishan Kishan (28) and Hardik Pandya (13) failed to give the impetus at the back end of the innings.

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Kyle Jamieson picked 1/27 in his 4 overs on debut, while Washington Sundar picked one wicket, as MI managed 159/9 in 20 overs.

However, the hero for the RCB team remained Harshal Patel who picked 5/27, including three wickets in his last over. It was his first fifer in IPL and with this Patel also became the first bowler to take a five-wicket haul against Mumbai Indians in all IPL history, a big achievement.

The cricket fraternity was all praises for Harshal Patel and lauded his brilliant fifer on Twitter.

Here are the tweets: