Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) recorded their first win of the second phase of IPL 2021 by defeating Mumbai Indians (MI) with a big margin of 54 runs in Dubai. It was their sixth win overall this season and second over the defending champions.
MI captain Rohit Sharma won the toss and opted to bowl first with Hardik Pandya replacing Saurabh Tiwary. RCB made three changes, bringing in Dan Christian, Kyle Jamieson and Shahbaz Ahmed for Tim David, Wanindu Hasaranga and Navdeep Saini.
RCB posted 165/6 in their 20 overs with captain Virat Kohli scoring 51 and Glenn Maxwell made 56. Kohli also became the first Indian to score 10,000 T20 runs en route his half-century. Jasprit Bumrah took 3/36 in his four overs.
In reply, MI were coasting at 79/1 in the 10th over, before Rohit Sharma lost his wicket for 43, soon after Ishan Kishan had smashed a delivery bowled by Maxwell straight back at Rohit who was at the non-striker's end. The blow left him in quite a bit of pain, and he probably couldn't time his attempt to clear the boundary as a result.
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Kishan, who lost his concentration, lost his own wicket as well in the next over trying to hoick Yuzvendra Chahal. MI never recovered and lost their final 9 wickets for 32 runs to be bowled out for 111. This was their third straight defeat in the UAE-leg of the season.
Harshal Patel took a hat-trick and finished with 4/17 and Chahal picked up 3/11. Maxwell too chipped in with 2/23 to cap off a great all-round game for him and was named the Player-of-the-Match.
After the match, Kishan was seen in a very disconsolate state, and Virat Kohli happened to notice that as he went upto the youngster and put his arm around his shoulder to comfort him before talking to him about the game.
Kishan has been named in India's T20 World Cup squad and his poor form in the ongoing IPL season has raised some concerns about his selection. He has scored just 107 runs in 8 matches thus far.
