With five defeats from six matches, the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) sit second to bottom in the IPL 2024 points table. On Thursday, RCB went down to a resurgent Mumbai Indians (MI) side at the Wankhede Stadium. After being invited to bat, RCB lost the early wickets of star batter Virat Kohli and debutant all-rounder Will Jacks. However, RCB skipper Faf du Plessis (61 off 40) rebuilt the innings on a placid Mumbai track with young Rajat Patidar, who hit an impressive 26-ball 50 with four sixes and three fours.
However, Jasprit Bumrah took five wickets to wreck RCB’s innings in the middle overs before Dinesh Karthik hit an unbeaten 23-ball 53 and took his team to 196-8 in 20 overs.
In response, Ishan Kishan and Rohit Sharma set up the chase with a century partnership for the opening wicket. In the end, Suryakumar Yadav’s 19-ball 52 cameo steered MI across the line in the 16th overs.
Amid MI batters’ decimation of the RCB bowlers, a section of the crowd urged Faf du Plessis to give an over to Kohli.
“Kohli ko bowling do (let Kohli bowl),” a section of the crowd was heard as chanting in a viral video.
Responding to the chants, Kohli crossed his hands, touched his ears and had a wry smile on his face.
Bumrah retunred figures of 5/21 and won the player-of-the-match award.
Both the captains praised Bumrah, with Hardik Pandya claiming that he is lucky to have the speedster in his team. Faf also claimed that Bumrah “has been the difference in the two innings”.
“He does this over and over again and every time I ask him he gets the wickets. He has so much experience and confidence,” Hardik said at the post-match presentation ceremony.
“You see him with the ball in his hand. You want to put him under pressure, but the variety does everyone in,” Faf added.
As far as the IPL 2024 points table is concerned, MI are seventh in the table while RCB are now ninth, just above Delhi Capitals, in the 10-team cash-rich tournament.
