Day ten of the tenth edition of the Indian Premier League saw the return of Virat Kohli as skipper for his side, the Royal Challengers Bangalore, when they took on the Mumbai Indians at their home ground, the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru. The second match was between Gujarat Lions and Rising Pune Supergiants at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Rajkot. Apart from the other highs and lows, day 10 saw two hat-tricks as well!
This was the season’s twelfth match and first time Virat Kohli played a match in this, the tenth edition of the IPL as he helmed his team RCB. MI won the toss and put RCB in to bat. The openers put up a good first wicket partnership with Kohli scoring 62 off 47 balls and Chris Gayle uncharacteristically subdued with his innings of 22 off 27 balls. The home team could only manage the modest total of 142 runs at the rate of 7.10 runs per over.
Thanks to some accurate bowling by RCB’s frontline bowlers, the top order of the Mumbai Indians collapsed. It was West Indian bowler Samuel Badree who did the most damage with his hat-trick: he dismissed opener Parthiv Patel, Mitchell McClenaghan and Rohit Sharma. He also took the wicket of Nitish Rana. He was awarded most stylish player of the day for his performance.
Even after the disastrous start, Mumbai bounced back and went on to win the match. It was Keiron Pollard with his stellar 70 off 47 balls (with 3 boundaries and 5 sixes) that steered his team to victory. Krunal Pandya was the other MI batsman to make a significant score. His 37 off 30 balls was the other major contribution to MI winning the match.
GL won the toss and chose to field first at their home ground in Rajkot. Opener Ajinkya Rahane was out for a duck, however, Rahul Tripathi (33 off 17) and skipper Steve Smith (43 off 28) steadied the innings. Ben Stokes, Manoj Tiwari and Ankit Sharma were the others who made a contribution and steered RPS to at total of 171.
Andrew Tye made a spectacular debut for GL and made a match winning contribution with his hat-trick and overall five wicket haul. His dismissal of Rahul Tripathi, Ben Stokes, Manoy Tiwary, Ankit Sharma and Shardul Tharkur was largely instrumental in restricting the RPS score to 171 for 8. He was awarded man of the match for this performance.
Openers Dwayne Smith and Brendon McCullum started well and put up 47 off 30 and 49 off 32 respectively for their team. Skipper Raina remained not out with his 35 and Aaron Finch was the other significant contributor with his 33 off 19. GL finally won by 7 wickets and 12 balls remaining. This is their first win of the season; helping them off the bottom of the table. It is now RCB at the bottom with just one win from their four matches so far.
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