Rajasthan Royals kept up their excellent start to this year’s IPL with a second successive win to reach the top of the IPL table. In contrast, Mumbai Indians, traditionally slow starters at the IPL, are at the bottom end of the table after losing their first 2 games.
Royals’ win was built around the brilliant century by their opener Jos Buttler who ended up with exactly 100 off 68 balls pushing Rajasthan to 193 off their 20 overs. Despite losing his opening partner Jaiswal early, Buttler took the fight to Mumbai bowlers, and in the company of Sanju Samson and Shimron Hetmyer, got Rajasthan to a total just beyond Mumbai’s reach.
Chasing 194 for the win, Mumbai Indians were well up with the required rate for a large part of their innings thanks to an excellent 3rd wicket partnership. After losing skipper Rohit Sharma and Amolpreet Singh within the first 4 overs, Ishan Kishan and youngster Tilak Varma put together 81 runs in the next 9 overs to keep Mumbai on target.
However, Ishan Kishan’s wicket led to a mini-collapse as Mumbai lose 4 wickets for 15 runs. During that spell, Rajasthan leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal was even on a hattrick but substitute fielder Karun Nair dropped Murugan Ashwin at first slip to deny the honor to Chahal.
Mumbai legend Kieron Pollard kept Mumbai in the game right till the last over but Rajasthan were always the favorites after Chahal’s 2 wickets in 2 balls, and eventually won by 23 runs.
Rajasthan next face Royal Challengers Bangalore on Tuesday, while Mumbai will try to register their first win of the season against Kolkata on Wednesday.
