IPL 2021: Four wins and three losses, a quick recap of MI’s campaign so far – Firstcricket News, Firstpost

IPL 2021 is set to resume in a few days and teams’ performance from the first half of the season will matter for a little, each side will have to restart their campaign from the scratch. While the top teams will have to ensure they maintain their lead, the bottom four will have a chance to resurrect their campaign. The season has been split into two halves and it is a new challenge that all teams will be facing. Never in the past has IPL been played in two halves.

Talking about Mumbai Indians (MI), they played seven matches in the first half, winning four and losing three. Let’s take a quick look at their campaign so far.

Match 1: MI vs RCB, 9 April — Lost

Mumbai Indians began their campaign with a loss. They are one team that always starts slow and takes time to get into a rhythm, but once they have an idea of what combination works for them, they become unstoppable.

In their first match of the season, MI went down against Royal Challengers Bangalore. RCB won the toss and opted to field first. Chris Lynn was the top-scorer for the side but he and Suryakumar Yadav aside, no one really got going and MI could manage only 159/9 in 20 overs.

Virat Kohli, Glenn Maxwell, AB de Villiers were all among runs but a flurry of wickets in the deep end of the chase meant RCB were made to work hard to get past the winning total.

File image of Mumbai Indians players. Sportzpics

Match 2, MI vs KKR, 13 April — Won

KKR employed the same tactics as RCB in this match against MI, played at Chennai.

Opting to field first, KKR managed to bowl out MI for a paltry 152. Rohit Sharma scored 43 while Suryakumar stormed to a 36-ball 56. But there was no help from others in the middle order.

KKR got off to a great start in the chase, with Shubman Gill and Nitish Rana putting up 72 for the opening wicket. But once this stand was broken, MI did not let KKR get back into the groove. Spinner Rahul Chahar picked four wickets as KKR were restricted to 142/7 in 20 overs. First win for MI in 2021 season.

Match 3, MI vs SRH, 17 April — Won

MI got lucky this time at the toss, winning it and opting to bat first for the first time in the tournament. Openers Quinton de Kock and Rohit played well. Kieron Pollard too did well for his 35. But apart from that, there were no batting heroes for MI. As a result, MI reached 150/5 at the end of 20 overs.

SRH had an easy target to chase down but it was always going to be difficult against the likes of Trent Boult, Jasprit Bumrah and Chahar. Boult and Chahar picked three wickets each as Bumrah bowled with an economy of under 4 runs to take MI to victory by 13 runs. Their second victory in the season.

Match 4, MI vs DC , 20 April — Lost

MI were now playing the last year’s finalists Delhi Capitals and they knew they were going to come hard at them, knowing DC got beaten in the final in IPL 2020. MI opted to bat first after winning the toss and their batting again disappointed with the team managing only 137/9.

Against a batting line-up that consisted of Prithvi Shaw, Shikhar Dhawan, Rishabh Pant and Steve Smith, MI needed a spirited effort from their bowling department but it was not to be. DC chased down the target with five balls to spare. Second loss of the season.

Match 5, MI vs PBKS, 23 April — Lost

Two wins and two losses and now MI needed to ensure they were back to winning ways. Punjab Kings won the toss and opted to bat first. Batting had disappointed MI so far and this match was no different. With help of captain Rohit’s 63 off 52 balls, MI scored 131/6 in the 20 overs.

It was going to be very easy for Punjab Kings as KL Rahul and Chris Gayle smashed them for fours and sixes to reach the target with 14 balls remaining.

File image of Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma. Sportzpics

Match 6, RR vs MI, 29 April — Won

Rajasthan Royals took on Mumbai Indians in this closely fought contest. MI won the toss and invited RR to bat first. RR’s top four shone but none got to a fifty. Still, the team managed to put on 171/4 on a Delhi track.

MI’s batting came good finally as de Kock fired an unbeaten 70 while Krunal Pandya played a blinder to take MI to their third win of the season.

Match 7, CSK vs MI, 1 May — Won

Mother of all IPL clashes, CSK and MI game was here and it was a double important match for Mumbai. One, they did not want to lose out to arch-rivals CSK. Two, they wanted to maintain the winning run. CSK were put in to bat first and they took full use of the great batting conditions in Delhi, scoring 218/4 from their allotted 20 overs thanks to fifties from Faf du Plessis, Moeen Ali and Ambati Rayudu.

But the batting conditions remained the same in the second innings as well. Pollard smashed a 34-ball 87 to take MI to a stunning four-wicket win over CSK to register their fourth win of the season.

MI resume their IPL 2021 campaign on 19 September against CSK.

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