IPL 2021: Mumbai Indians back in business with win over Rajasthan Royals | Cricket News – Times of India

When the plane touched down at the Delhi airport a few days ago, Quinton de Kock must’ve been experiencing some sort of nervousness. One of the star performers of the Mumbai Indians’ (MI) triumphant, dominant run in IPL-2020, de Kock had managed just 47 runs in four outings in this edition so far, with 40 of those runs coming in one knock. Like the rest of his batting colleagues at MI, the South African wicketkeeper had found it tough to cope with the slow and turning surface at Chennai.
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The beautiful batting pitch at the Arun Jaitely Stadium in the Capital, though, was exactly the tonic that de Kock needed to find his mojo.
Playing shots all around the park, the 28-year-old left-hander smashed his maiden half-century this season — an unbeaten 70 (50 balls, 6×4, 2×6) — to help MI to a seven-wicket win over the Rajasthan Royals on Thursday afternoon. (SCORECARD)

It helped the defending champions end the sequence of two defeats on the bounce and record their third win in six games to keep occupying the mid-table slot.
The Royals, meanwhile, now languish at the seventh spot with four defeats in six games and need to pull up their socks before it’s too late.
Like de Kock, another man who conquered his demons with the bat for MI was Krunal Pandya.
Taking a brave call, the five-time IPL champs dropped their out-of-form India batsman Ishan Kishan (73 runs in five games), who was one of their key players last season, for paceman Nathan Coulter-Nile.

Filling in for Kishan at No 4, Krunal, promoted ahead of Hardik Pandya and Kieron Pollard, justified MI’s surprising move, cracking 39 (26 balls, 2×4, 2×6) in a 44-ball 63-run third-wicket alliance with de Kock that sealed the deal for his team.
A superb yorker by Mustafizur Rahman shattered Krunal’s stumps, but Pollard (16 not out, 8b, 2×4, 1×6) provided the finishing touches in typical fashion, as MI chased down 172 in the 19th over without much sweat, even though they lost Rohit Sharma (14) and Suryakumar Yadav (16) cheaply to Chris Morris.
Earlier, Jasprit Bumrah and Trent Boult continued to enhance their reputations of being the best death overs bowling pair in world cricket currently as RR made 171 for four, falling at least 10 runs short of what would have been a par total for them.

Leg-spinner Rahul Chahar too continued to impress. Looking at almost his best, Bumrah conceded only 15 off his four overs, while picking up a wicket.
In his first spell of two overs, Bumrah, with Jos Buttler and Yashasvi Jaiswal looking to attack the bowling, gave away just seven runs, as Buttler looked to play him out, taking just one off his second over. When he came back at the death, Bumrah conceded just eight off his final two overs, which were the 15th and 17th overs of the innings, even as he picked the wicket of the Shivam Dube caught and bowled.

At the other end, Boult castled Sanju Samson for 42 in the 18th over. MI’s bowling hero though was leggie Chahar as he dismissed both the well set openers Buttler (41 off 32 balls, 3×6, 3×4) and Jaiswal (32 off 20 balls, 2×4, 2×6).