Tonight the royalty of Rajasthan clashed against the business capital of India, Mumbai.

From the pure

cricketing perspective it promised to be a mouth-watering clash, as Rajasthan had tapered off after a
strong start at Sharjah. Mumbai on the other hand, for the first time in IPL history had began their
tournament in very good form. It looks as if, Mumbai had struck their ideal 11, even before most of the
teams could adjust to the dry heat of UAE. So, it would be a battle between two teams located on two
opposite sides of the bell-curve.

MI won the toss and chose to bat. RR made a very positive change by bringing in the young pacy Kartik
Tyagi in the place of an ineffective Unadkat. However, Smith started the game with one of his typical
brain-fade moments- he opened the bowling with Ankit Rajpoot and Shreyas Gopal inspite of having
Archer in the team. Kartik Tyagi is known for his ability to swing the ball both ways- infact he is called
the next Bhuvaneshwar Kumar of India. Even he was not handed the new ball- I must say inexplicable
decision making from Smith.

Jofra and Tyagi were brought in only after the 3 rd over, when the MI openers have already reached 29-0.
This early momentum played in the favour of MI. The fact that Tyagi picked up De Kock by hurrying him
for pace in his very first over, made Smith’s decision look pretty silly. Infact Tyagi bowled with grit and
pace and can turn up to be an asset for RR, if he is given the required space to frow.

The only batsman in the top 4 of MI, who was yet to score a half century in the tournament got back to
form today. Suryakumar Yadav is somebody, Rohit Sharma rates pretty highly. Infact the MI skipper
belives that S.K.Y maybe up for an Indian cap pretty soon. This is why Surya had been backed for the last
few matches and tonight it was his turn to repay the faith on him.

Surya began cautiously tonight. He scored 12 at run-a-ball and then played a few confident looking shots
off Tyagi. But, Surya’s return to form is always marked by his signature loft over deep square leg. The
sweep he played against Shreyas Gopal oto the square leg boundary officially marked the entry of SKY
into the cash-rich league. He carried on from there, driving, pulling, steering the length deliveries to
good effect. Another excellent aspect of his inning was that he ran well between the wickets, and kept
the scoreboard ticking, anchoring the MI inning from one end in the process.

Shreyas Gopal is flourishing in his role as a powerplay bowler this iPL. He is being used by Smith in the
same pattern as Kohli is using Sundar in this iPL. The legspinner has excellent loop in his delivery and is
surely an underrated cricketer in the franhise squad. Tonight, he accounted for Rohit with a googly and
then got Kishan to fall for his loopy trap to slog the delivery.

After scoring his 50 off 36 deliveries, Surya accelerated and scored his next 29 off just 11 deliveries to
hand MI the finishing flourish it needed. It should be a matter of pride that MI reached the score of 193
even without the services of Pollard in the middle. Hardik is gradually returning to form and the MI
batting lineup has already started to present ominous signs for the remaining teams.

RR’s powerplay outside Sharjah had been a disastrous one. Tonight was no different. Probably because
Smith has stayed away from T20s for so long, he is trying o hit the ball too hard. This was not much of a
problem at Sharjah as his mishits were also clearing the boundaries. But at Abu Dhabi and Dubai his
frenetic nature has cost him his wicket.
Tonight Smith was as fidgety infront of Bumrah as he was infront of Cummins. He underedged a ball to
De Kock who completed an excellent catch from his blind spot.

Kudos to Captain Rohit, for opening the bowling with the trio of Boult, Pattinson and Bumrah. Launching
3 premiere pacers on the opposition upfront, shifted the momentum in MI’s favour- a stratgey that RR
missed out on. A couple of days ago Boult was bowling his cutters on the surface of Sharjah and today
he was again at hisbest bowling full swinging deliveries scalping out Jaiswal and Samson- the versatility
of a genius.

RR again lost 3 wickets inside the powerplay and Butler at the end was left with too much to do alone.
Neither the-last-match-hero Lomror, nor Tom Curran were ideal allies to the English wicket keeper as he
played one of the ebst innings ever played in IPL in a losing cause. Butler’s form is something RR will be
pleased about in this match, as he raced to a 44 ball 70 to bring down the losing margin for RR.

Once, Butler was dismissed by a peach of a catch at long-on courtesy Pollard, the rest of the match just
remained a formaility. Hopefully Stokes is fit enough to go for the next game, as RR’s middle order woes
are compounding every match.

MI looks like a well oiled Engine ready to demolish the opposition and they would hope to keep this
consistency throughout the tournament.