Mumbai Indians (MI) registered a comprehensive six-wicket victory over Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) at the Wankhede Stadium on Tuesday (May 9).
Asked to bat first, RCB posted 199/6 on the board with key contributions from Glenn Maxwell (68 off 33), Faf du Plessis (65 off 41), and Dinesh Karthik (30 off 18).
In reply, the hosts overhauled the target in just 16.3 overs as the likes of Suryakumar Yadav (83 off 35), Nehal Wadhera (52* off 34), and Ishan Kishan (42 off 21) took the RCB attack to the cleaners.
Speaking after the game, MI skipper Rohit Sharma heaped praise on debutant pacer Akash Madhwal, who gave away just 6 runs in the final over of RCB's innings to swing the momentum in Mumbai’s favour.
“It is a good pitch. If you apply yourselves, you can get runs. Those four guys played well. Akash was with us last year as well. We saw the skillset. We wanted to give him a role. He is quite confident. He leads his Uttarakhand team. He knows what field he needs. We restricted them to less than 200. Was a great effort, It could have been 220 or more,” Rohit said at the post-match presentation ceremony.
The MI captain further stated that he is not able to gauge what a "safe score" is in the IPL 2023.
“I have no idea what a safe score is. The last four games we have seen excess of 200 has been scored. Most of the teams are taking risks and it is coming off. The batters are taking risks and 200 plus scores are being chased. The mindset of the batters is to do something special for the team and it is coming off as well,” he added.
With this victory, Mumbai Indians jumped to the third spot in the 10-team standings, carrying 12 points from 11 matches.
The Rohit Sharma-led side will next face defending champions Gujarat Titans on Friday (May 12) at the Wankhede Stadium.