Mumbai Indians (MI) have pulled off two close wins defending a target at Chepauk against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH). MI's bowling unit did a great job to keep them in the game in both matches despite a modest total.
Mumbai pacer Trent Boult has praised his bowling partner Jasprit Bumrah for being deadly in the death overs. Bumrah bowled the penultimate over against Sunrisers on Saturday (April 17), and gave away just 5 runs with a wicket of SRH's last recognized batsman Vijay Shankar.
"It's great to see a guy (Bumrah) like that operate. How clear he is with what he is doing with the ball throughout his whole spell," Boult said after MI's win over SRH by 13 runs.
"But at the death, I personally believe, he is one of the best death bowlers in the world. He makes my job a heck of a lot easier. It is always nice being on the right side of those situations. Hopefully, we can get a bit of momentum into this tournament," he added.
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Bumrah conceded only 14 runs in his four overs and he picked up a wicket. SRH were eventually bowled out on 137 runs. Boult and Rahul Chahar picked up three wickets each.
"It's hard to pin-point one performance there. A lot of credit to the whole side for hanging in there. We knew we were a few runs short of the par score.
"But we also knew that this is a pitch where you can fight. And you get a couple of wickets, you can really get back in the chase.
"I thought a couple of direct hits from Hardik (Pandya) and the three wickets from Rahul were important when we were bowling. And then Bumrah there, bowling his four overs for only 14 was pretty amazing," he added.
Mumbai Indians had lost their first match against Royal Challengers Bangalore while defending a target. But they didn't let the next two matches slip out of their hands.
Boult talked about the difference in the pitch of Wankhede stadium at Mumbai and Chennai's Chepauk. "The contrast between Wankhede and Chepauk Stadium is quite considerable. It looks like its swinging around nicely and it's a perfect surface in Mumbai.
"Here as a pace bowler, you got to be extremely accurate. Key has really been our ability to bowl dot balls and keep pushing the run rate."
Mumbai will move to Delhi after completing five matches at Chepauk. "It gives us a chance to settle at the venue. But the key would be to obviously read the conditions quickly as possible and make the most of them really.
"So, it's a unique situation. We've got five here, four in Delhi, move around a little bit. But, I think especially in the first half of the tournament you obviously get on the right side of a couple of results and it's nice to get those couple of wins in the last two matches," he said.
(With PTI Inputs)
