On 12th April, 2017, in IPL Mumbai Indians crushed Sunrisers Hyderabad by playing good cricket. The bowlers bowled well. The batsmen chipped in with their part.

On 12th April, 2017, there was serious clash in IPL tournament between Mumbai Indians and Sunrisers Hyderabad played at Wankhede stadium. Sunrisers Hyderabad batted first. They scored 159 runs in 20 overs. Warner scored a quick fire 48 runs. Shikhar Dhawan scored a steady innings of 49 runs. In reply Mumbai scored 160 runs with many balls to spare.

They outplayed Hyderabad in all the departments bowling, fielding, batting.

 

Mumbai Indians stuck to their known bowling attack. The bowling was opened with Malinga and Mcgleanagen. Then Bumrah and Hardik Pandya followed. In between there was spin attack of Harbhajan Singh and Krunal Pandya.

 

It has been seen that the spinners were more difficult to handle in this IPL 10, than the pace bowlers. It is because of their slow pace. The same thing happened in the Wankhede Stadium. When the pace bowlers like Malinga and Mcgleanagen bowled it was easy to handle. Warner and Shikhar Dhawan played them with ease. But when Krunal Pandya came up the batsmen struggled. They tried to go for lofted shots. In majority of cases there was mistiming. All of a sudden Hyderabad started struggling in the middle overs. Yuvraj Singh got bowled out in the ball of Hardik Pandya. He wanted to drive a ball which was very close to his body. He got the stumps knocked out. At the end Hyderabad ended up with a decent score of 159 runs.

 

It was a test of strong Hyderabad bowling with decent Mumbai batting. Mumbai in all these matches are making a wrong decision of asking Buttler to open with Parthiv Patel. Instead Mumbai should send Rohit Sharma to open with Parthiv Patel. Buttler is not a natural opener. So he failed in most of the matches of Mumbai and the team management is responsible for that.

 

But Parthiv Patel played extravagant shots against the bowling of Ashish Nehra, Bhubaneswar Kumar and Mushtafizur Rehman. He scored more than 35 runs and the beginning that he gave helped the batsmen at the middle to easily take the score forward. Rohit Sharma failed again after coming at No 3. He is in terrible form. He has to very quickly come back to form to change the fortunes of Mumbai. The fans of Mumbai Indians are also very disappointed with the performance of Rohit Sharma. He has great fan following like Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir.

 

Pollard came in the middle overs, did hit an over boundary but perished at 14 runs still having Mumbai needing another 70 runs to get. Rana and Krunal Pandya steadied the ship. Rana had become a star by this period of time. Krunal Pandya is blessed with shots all over the ground. He anchored the innings and scored the required runs with the help of his brother Hardik Pandya and Mumbai won the match with many balls to spare.

 

Mumbai again shocked Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the match played in Bengaluru on 14th April. For the first time in IPL 10, Virat Kohli played for Bengaluru. It had been a re-laid surface. The wicket was very slow.

Virat Kohli played a waiting game and scored 62 runs. Gayle scored 22 runs and De Villiers 19 runs. They found stroke play very difficult. Those who came later like Stuart Binny they found the wicket even more slow and Bengaluru ended up scoring 142 runs in 20 overs.

 

But then the miracle happened. West Indian spinner Badree scored a hatrick against Mumbai. He picked up the wickets of Parthiv Patel, Rohit Sharma, Rana and took 4 wickets in total giving very less runs. Mumbai was tottering at 8 runs for the loss of 4 wickets after 5 overs. Mcgleanagen was promoted up the order but he tried a lofty chip shot and got caught out in the ball of Badree for a duck.

 

At that time Pollard and Krunal Pandya steadied the ship. The ball was not coming on to the bat. The spinners like Badree, Chahal, Negi and pacers like Aravind utilized the pitch and bowled extremely well.

 

At one point of time after 10 overs, the asking rate went to 10. But Pollard played a waiting game and then went for a charge. He hit Chahal for a sixer and Negi for two over boundaries in the same over. By the time Pollard got out after scoring 70 runs, the match was in the hands of Mumbai. It was a complete turn around for Mumbai.

 

Everyone thought Bengaluru would win. Krunal Pandya gave able support and remained unbeaten with 35 runs. Hardik Pandya finished the game for Mumbai. The hattrick of Samuel Badree also could not save the fortune for Bengaluru.

 

There was few observations from the 2 matches. The big hitters in the team should learn from Keiron Pollard, that slogging in slow sluggish wicket cannot help the cause. Batsmen are required to play a waiting game. They should place the ball and continue taking singles. Whenever a short pitched delivery or a widish delivery is bowled then they can go for big shots.

 

As far as Bengaluru is concerned, they have made too much investment in the batsmen. With Virat Kohli, Gayle, De Villiers and Shane Watson, already there are individual match winners who can win the matches single-handedly. They should have spent money in arranging a good bowling attack. Although the spin battery with Chahal and Badree is good, the pace attack is mediocre. In big matches it counts.

Although Mumbai won a lost match, which they were losing till the 17th over, they are still struggling with batting order. With all the failures of Rohit Sharma, experts feel that he should open the innings. Rana should come at No 3, Krunal Pandya should come at No 4. When the team requires big hitting Pollard should come at No 5 and Buttler at No 6. Regarding Hyderabad, they are becoming too dependent on Warner and Shikhar Dhawan. Henriques and Yuvraj Singh has to fire if Hyderabad has to defeat the big teams. Mustafizur and Ashish Nehra are also becoming predictable. They should get better spinners.