Key Points:
- MI is coming out as the strongest team of IPL 2020 with DC.
- Nothing change even after captaincy given to Eoin Morgan.
- The poor form of Russell or say over-dependence on a player who can only slog is the biggest problem for KKR this year.
- De Kock poured out his frustrations on that white ball.
- MI Bowling strongest in IPL 2020.
MI once again becoming a strong contender for 2020 IPL championship this year. With CSK poor form, only DC look near to MI this year in ipl 2020. Mumbai beat KKR easily in 32nd match.
The overnight leadership shift in the set-up of the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) did nothing to curb their haemorrhage.
Eoin Morgan during the Toss:
At the toss, the new KKR skipper, former World Cup-winning captain Eoin Morgan, said that the transition had taken place amicably, and also that the bigger picture had been taken into account by former captain Dinesh Karthik. The passing of the baton did not unfold quite as well on the Abu Dhabi field and against the Mumbai Indians (MI), however.
At the collapse of the KKR opener, and the top scorer of the season, Shubman Gill’s wicket, the new captain stepped in, joining the old captain in the centre. Karthik pulled leggie Rahul Chahar on to his stumps and left the side reeling at 43/4 after eight overs, the first ball of this moment of past and future meeting in the present. Seeking redemption was now entirely on the shoulders of Morgan.
Russell not in his original form:
Morgan has this dangerous Andre Russell for the company for a simple while. Perhaps a big reason for KKR languishing this season in the mid-table is due to Russell’s absence of big hits. The Jamaican does have this year’s top-score of 24. With a six off Krunal Pandya during the next over and a fiercely cut boundary off Chahar in the 10th, shots that brought KKR to just 57 runs at the halfway point, he wanted to change that on Friday.
But when Russell left in the following over, Morgan found much-needed support from unlikely quarters, getting gloved a Jasprit Bumrah snorter to the ‘keeper.’ When these two teams met earlier in the tournament, fast Aussie Pat Cummins proved that by going after Bumrah, he too could tonk sixes at will. Through Morgan anchoring the innings on Friday, Cummins went after nearly everyone else.
In the 13th over, Cummins cut loose, bowled by fellow countryman Nathan Coulter-Nile, smacking him for a pair of fours and a towering six. Then, on the 19th, Trent Boult was handled similarly, when Cummins got to his first IPL fifty. In the final over, he handed the strike over with yet another boundary off Coulter-Nile but by then Morgan, batting on a decent 23 out of 25 balls, had seen enough.
Morgan took two sixes and two doubles to 39 and KKR to 148, respectively. From where they once were, the score was definitely respectable. But it was not nearly enough against Mumbai, and particularly due to the imperious opener of the form Quinton de Kock finds himself in. With eight wickets to spare, De Kock’s unbeaten 78 ensured MI won.
Great innings by De Kock:
De Kock had dropped Cummins on 36 in his capacity as a wicketkeeper and spent the rest of the innings watching the Australian making the opportunity count. So, when Varun Chakravarthy returned the favor to de Kock when on 16, he poured out his frustrations on that white ball. Pacer Prasidh Krishna was attacked on the 8th for 16 runs.
Then, Russell felt the heat as well, clobbered by the South African gloveman for 12 runs in the 9th, who in turn achieved his third as well as the best fifty in the last four matches.
Only in the 18th over were the winning runs, struck by a fluent Hardik Pandya, struck. But the outcome had been assured a lot earlier.
