IPL 2015: Mumbai Indians (MI) vs Delhi Daredevils (DD)

One of the best match witnessed this IPL season. Mumbai Indians looked more tough and a solid unit. I must appreciate MI bowling attack, especially 18th, 19th and 20th over by MI. If MI keep this fighting spirit ON, we would have a strong chance to see them in Playoffs.

Malinga is getting better and better!
Harbhajan 4 overs 11 runs 2 wkts 16 dot balls! exceptional figures in this format of the game.

Rohit should have played little more free at that crucial stage of the inning to show the nerve.

Excellent performance by Yuvaraj with the Bat.

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just a flick and that too against a spinner, Pollard what a six shot it was :)
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a leg spinner with 8 to defend. Looks tough. one good hit and everything gets collapsed for DD.
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Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeh 8 off 6 balls. What a battle!
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a delicate warrior, a silent warrior, a victorious warrior! the Rayudu!!!
a delicate swing of a bat for 4
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AND THE GIANT THUNDERS!!! what a six!
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luck favors the brave! :) 22 off 12 balls

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excellent lofted drive fir 4 by Rayudu!

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way to go MI! 32 of 18 balls!

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sensibly played by Kiron Pollard for one run

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An over from Amit Mishra with 5 googly deliveries. What a terrific hit by Pollar in the middle of
an attack of wrong-ones. Disheartening to see Rohit depart.
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Good going. Focus on one big over out of next two.

 62 required from 36 balls
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Awesome 2.
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fantastic MI. Keep up the momentum!!!

68 required from 42 balls with wickets intact. Keep it up!!

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that's it that's the way to get it. 1s, 2s, then a boundary or six to push the run rate.... excellent job MI!

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We don't need silly run outs Rohit. be watchful!!! Run out is the worst way to get out in any form of cricket.

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@ 2332 hrs: 60 balls 92 runs to win. quite an achievable equation!!! hold the nerves MI!!! put up a great fight and show....

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@ 2318 hrs: Ohh! Good to see that Rohit Sharma has been carrying tables as per D/L chart.

Only way I see MI to win this game, while they have lost 4 wickets at the end of 6th over is by hoping that match gets played for remaining 14 overs without any further delay or disturbance due to the rain AND play with cool and calm composure by building solid partnership from here to ensure that ultimate target of 153 gets chased successfully.

That means, Rohit Sharma and Rayudu should not worry much about D/L because a loss of another wicket here could cause a significant damage to MI's plans for the victory.


All the best MI.

IPL 2015: Chennai Super Kings (CSK) vs Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB)

Excellent game. It was more of a mind game. Dhoni was on top of it right from the beginning
whereas somehow Virat Kohli always felt under pressure. That 17 yr old kid Sarfaraz fumbled a little
once which gave away one run, Virat Kohli was quite expressive. This is certainly not the way to make any youngster comfortable within a team. Plus what could be said about the way Virat Kohli gave away his own wicket. He played the ball, from the stump vision it could be seen that ball is flying up and for which Bravo is stretching his hand for it and still Mr. Captain trying to march ahead instead returning to the base. Fantastic throw by Bravo to get Virat out. Once again Virat Kohli disappointed the team, when he was looking very strong and much capable to take RCB to the victory. It was a good knock by Virat Kohli today, but all these small mistakes under pressure counts a lot to cause a break.

Although CSK lost 9 wickets today, I enjoyed watching CSK batting, because despite of losing wickets at frequent intervals CSK did not stop trying to push itself up for the higher and higher target.
Actually speaking 148 was certainly not a big chase for RCB had they showed composed and calm performance.

I must admit Patel was the victim of Dhoni's appeal, while he was called OUT quite unfairly.

On three occasions the match went out of RCB's hands to CSK's. First when AB got out. Second when Virat Kohli got out. Third when H Patel was given out.

For me the most memorable moment was when AB Devilliers got out. One should have noticed the field placement by Dhoni to catch AB. M S Dhoni had set 6 players to the off-side inside the circle.
This was more like Hunting, and coincidentally the logo of CSK is also that of a Lion. But AB also a genius of his own class, he tried to find a gap on the offside only. Probably it was tempting for him to place the ball above fielders' head and outside the circle otherwise he could have
also played the same shot safe by grounding the ball after coming off from the bat, rather than shooting straight in the air. Well! AB is always precious!!! :))

Excellent captaincy by M S Dhoni once again. Leadership makes a huge huge difference and like to witness it especially when it does...
    

IPL 2015: Rajasthan Royals (RR) vs Delhi Daredevils (DD)

Ajinkya Rahane aap Ajinkya raho!!! what an inning. Half the runs of RR were scored by this guy alone. He scored fantastic 91 out of 189, played entire 20 overs inning and remained not out. Mr. Dependable!!! He is under right kind of leadership and coaching i.e. of Sir Rahul Dravid. What a terrific batsman Ajinkya has been evolved not only for T20 format but any format. Adjusting his skills to any format of the game and still to remain Mr. Dependable, who knows better than the WALL (Rahul Dravid) himself.

One more thing I could observe on the TV that when RR were batting and it was 1 wkt down, happened to see that three players were padded up to get in viz. Faulkner, Sanju Samson (terrfic inning in RR's last game) and Binny. Still the one who arrived on the fall of a second wicket was Karun Nair. The point to be noted here is the option Rahul Dravid and RR team keeps ready for the way game takes it's turn. The attitude to win was being displayed right from the camp, today by RR.

I had felt that RR has almost won this game the way DD took off, yet it was quite a fight they put up till the end to lose the game by only 14 runs. The opening duo of DD who have been quite a hit and been into limelight this season lost wickets pretty early today without any significant contribution. J P Duminy tried best to defend the fort however did not get very good support from the other side except that of Yuvaraj while Yuvaraj did not seem quite comfortable today and had to leave the field when he was on 22 out of 18 balls.

Another good game of IPL 2015, on pretty decent wicket which did not change much throughout the game, with quite a grass on it, favoring pace attack.

Good night!    

IPL 2015: Mumbai Indians (MI) vs Kings XI Punjab (KXIP)

This is 4th victory for MI in last 5 games. Although MI won this match quite comfortably, I feel Mumbai could have done little more good in it's batting performance. Parthiv Patel and Simmons gave excellent start to MI and the score after first 10 overs was more than 100 without a loss of single wicket. Rohit Sharma who had come two down in the previous match, pushed himself up to one down position. While Mumbai Indian's main strength is Batting, ideally Rohit Sharma should have focused to take the score to more than 200 in the second half of the innings with 10 wickets intact and good depth in the batting line-up. But no! Rohit seemed to have played a comfortable inning. If Rohit was conscious about losing his wicket, he could have sent someone else to accelerate the score, to ensure that team push for 200+ target. If that wicket falls quickly may be he could have called for another attack on KXIP, by sending someone else to hit the good shots and push up the score on the board at high run rate. This is where captaincy makes the difference.

Thanks to Virendar Sehwag's continued form of getting out quickly, and KXIP being the weakest side in the IPL 2015, MI actually never felt a pressure of losing this match. David Miller was proving to be good but could not keep it up for long. Lasith Malinga was up one notch to his form, although could not get to see much of those reverse swinging yorkers, he was quite lethal and tough in his attack.

Kieron Pollard bowled good one over. Especially when the require run rate for KXIP was about 10 per over, batsman could not hit bowl for the boundary rope and had to settled down 1s or 2s.  It's tough to keep this 1.96m giant beast out of action for long!!! He wants to deliver and he is willing to do his best every time he is in-charge.

I don't understand Vinay Kumar always bowling 20th over???? It's good that he had much cushion and margin for his errors. I think MI has a good bowling mix as well, just that they should no how to use it most effectively. And certainly they should not falter and aim to perform better and better in its batting department. Such a strong batting line up they have.

Bhajji sir! aapkaa kyaa kahena. You are doing best as a senior member in the camp.

Anyways I'm MI fan, and good to see them winning. 

IPL 2015: Chennai Super Kings (CSK) vs Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH)

Sunrisers scored massive 192/7 in 20 overs CSK did never look comfortable taking off. CSK kept losing it's wickets frequently. At one point it looked like Sir M S Dhoni and Faf Du Plessis were getting set to build good partnership at the same time stepping on the Run Rate accelerator, Faf Du Plessis got run out in a cofusion, and then Sir M S Dhoni also got out quickly.

At the end Sunrisers won. It was not only due to the match winning knock by it's captain David Warner 28 balls 61 runs, but also due to the excellent support from the bowlers keeping CSK contained for the short total. Overall SRH team performed as a unit. and SRH won by 22 runs!!! 

IPL 2015: Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) vs. Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB)

The match happened for 10 overs each side due to rain. In this format there was not much scope for the strategy of 20 years rather, the format calls for the best performance one could put into at the cost of least possible mistakes.

KKR put a decent total of 111 in 10 overs putting challenge on RCB. RCB took off quite well and comfortable. But then things were not in RCB's favor entirely. While Virat looked quite comfortable,
Gayle after giving good start could not hold on for long against left arm spinner Brad Hogg. Kind off fell into trap after hitting two massive sixes in Hogg's first over. AB Devilliers was bit unfortunate to get bowled out by the shot he played on the back foot, ball hit his ankle and went back to hit the stumps. while things were looking comfortable and on the edge, from where Match could have gone either teams way at the end of 7th over, the equation was RCB needed 32 out of 18 balls. Then Virat Kohli made a mistake of getting out while trying to hit a ball six at long on. There was no need for Virat Kohli to get out like that actually. He had to steer the team to the victory.

Then KKR did it's last mistake. Gautam Gambhir selected his most expensive bowler Umesh Yadav to bowl 9th over when equation was favoring KKR and batsman at the pitch were not looking quite confident. The match turned there. For KKR Andrew Russel did put excellent all round performance,
however at the end, the best team won.

IPL 2015: Mumbai Indians (MI) vs. Rajasthan Royals (RR)

Could not see match entirely but MI did post really very good total on the board, so good that despite poor bowling performance they could get saved from another taunting defeat. They were almost there, about to get defeated by very cool and composed performance by Rajasthan Royals but I guess it was not RR's day today.

At presentation ceremony Rohit Sharma mentioned that "it's good we know now what everybody can contribute." really??? really Rohit knows?

I wonder sometimes why Kieron Pollard does not get a chance to bowl, especially when full time bowlers are getting smashed out of the boundary very often. Does Rohit understand Kieron's skills and capability? At least it does not look like. Or is it that Kieron has not been paid for his batting skills? ;) j/k

Today MI had a chance to win by significant difference, to contribute to their run rate performance.

But they never looked that determined and played more like let the victory come on it's own and not like 'make things happen' performance.

MI's strength is strong batting. To remain victorious MI should ensure that they do not fail on their
batting performance while strengthening bowling and fielding department. I find the best Malinga
does not look to be that Best as he used to be earlier and being consistently beaten in this IPL. Probably MI could think of dropping this Star foreign player to make best possible use of available foreign talent pool by selecting some other all rounder or specialized batsman or specialized bowler.
Vinay Kumar!!! what full-tossed deliveries he was bowling that too in last over? screwing the team. Does MI have any other option instead of him, or may be at least he should not be given last over?
While Harbhajan trying his best to keep batsmen under pressure. I think Suchit could do little bit better by bowling on the outside the off-stump or keeping his attack on the stump and avoid any extra wide down the leg side of the batsman.

Sanju Samson!!! what an inning boy. Fantastic and entertaining!

MI team as whole is not a bad selection, but captain? I believe yes. MI could have done much better with Yuvaraj as their captain I think.