IPL 2024: Heinrich Klaasen and Mitchell McClenaghan analyse MI's ploy to hold back Jasprit Bumrah amid SRH blitzkrieg

The Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium witnessed a fascinating encounter on Wednesday, March 27 as Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) amassed the highest team total in the history of the Indian Premier League (IPL) before beating Mumbai Indians (MI) by 31 runs.

In their 20 overs, SRH posted a whopping 277/3 after Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, and Heinrich Klaasen smashed blistering half-centuries. Hardik Pandya, who captained Mumbai Indians for the second time, garnered severe criticism for some of his bowling changes. Experts and fans pointed out that his usage of the four overs of Jasprit Bumrah, the team's premier bowler, wasn't great.

The right-arm pacer bowled the fourth over before being re-introduced into the attack in the 13th over. Former Australian all-rounder and Sunrisers Hyderabad head coach Tom Moody hailed Bumrah as arguably the best bowler across formats and said that he had to bowl at least a couple of overs inside the powerplay when Head was taking the other MI bowlers to the cleaners.

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When Bumrah came on to bowl his second over, SRH were comfortably placed at 173/3 in 12 overs. The in-form Klaasen was batting on 8 off 3 balls at that time. The five-time champions held back Bumrah's overs to allow him to bowl to the South African wicketkeeper-batter, who went on to smash an unbeaten 80 off 34 balls. However, the platform was already set by the likes of Head and Sharma and Klaasen had the luxury of playing out the Indian pacer without having to take any risks.

McClenaghan opined that bowling Bumrah to Head upfront could have been an equally good strategy as bowling him to Klaasen in the middle overs.

"Even with match-ups and knowing your biggest threats, you know Travis Head, and you know how Travis Head is going to play. Jasprit Bumrah moving the ball away from Travis Head was a very, very good match-up," McClenaghan said as quoted by India Today.

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They didn't bowl their best bowler in the powerplay: Heinrich Klaasen

Klaasen, who received the Orange Cap after the first innings, said that MI missed a trick by not bowling Bumrah, their best bowler inside the powerplay. He also noted that the start given by the top-order batters helped him to face Bumrah without any pressure.

"They didn't bowl their best bowler in the powerplay... that was our plan. They missed a trick up front. We've got incredible strikers up front in our batting line-up. They just set the tempo so our work was basically done," Klaasen said.