Ravichandran Ashwin, the captain of the Kings XI Punjab, has expressed, after losing last night's encounter to Mumbai Indians, that he feels Jasprit Bumrah was the real difference in the end between the two sides. 

Batting first at the Holkar Stadium, MI was able to restrict KXIP for a modest score of 175 purely because of the way Jasprit Bumrah bowled at the decisive stages of the innings. His spell of 1/19 in his quota of 4 overs ensured Kings XI is about 20 runs short at the halfway mark, which they eventually were. Mumbai chased down the target, despite outstanding captaincy from Ravichandran Ashwin, in 19 overs. 

Ashwin was quoted saying after the game that, “He (Bumrah) bowled really well. You can say he made the difference. He did well in the death overs and didn’t leak a lot of runs in the powerplay when (Chris) Gayle was batting.”

Ashwin was quite stubborn in defense of the powerplay Kings XI had where they only scored 48 runs and thought the middle order didn't quite complete the job. He said, "We were about 10-15 runs short. The wicket was a bit sticky early on. I thought 180+ would be a good score but we lost wickets in the middle overs. Gayle set it up with his knock and but we couldn’t finish well. Yes, the middle-order has been a bit shaky but it’s important to have faith in them,”

Ashwin, who himself bowled an outstanding spell of 0/23, said: “I thought we bowled well for the most part of the innings. You can say we erred in length in the 17th, 18th and the 19th over. It does happen sometimes"

“I don’t think we played bad cricket. It (Indore) is a difficult ground to defend. We had a good chance till the 15th over but Rohit (Sharma) was there till the end for MI. There aren’t a lot of games MI lose when Rohit Sharma stays till the end,”