IPL 2019: Match 36, RR vs MI - Who Said What

The Mumbai Indians (MI) went down for the fourth time in as many matches against the Rajasthan Royals (RR). Despite Jos Buttler not playing the game, the visitors couldn’t play to their potential and lost the game comfortably in the end by five wickets at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur. Chasing down the total of 162 runs, the Royals’ skipper Steve Smith took the onus on himself to win the game for his team and remained unbeaten till the end.

Ajinkya Rahane opened the innings along with Sanju Samson today but the former captain, who had to step down just before the game, was dismissed by Rahul Chahar early. Samson though played some brilliant strokes to get the team off to a good start. Smith, on the other hand, came in seamlessly played a few delightful strokes and got settled quickly.

Post the powerplay, Chahar snaffled Samson and Ben Stokes in the same over to derail the chase. But Riyan Parag showed nerves of steel. He stayed calm and played a beautiful knock off 43 off 29 balls. His partnership of 70 runs with the skipper Smith turned out to be match-winning in the end as the Royals thumped MI by five wickets to register their third win of the season.

De Kock propels MI

Earlier, Rohit Sharma‘s poor season continued after being put in to bat first. Quinton de Kock, however, continued his good touch to score 65 runs even as Suryakumar Yadav also played second foil to him. He mustered 34 off 33 balls but it was tough for MI to hit boundaries in the death overs.

The big boundaries didn’t help either and the Royals, apart from dropping catches, did everything right in the last few overs. Smith’s captaincy also has to be lauded as he handled the situation superbly. Despite Hardik Pandya’s little blitz in the end, MI could just manage to post 161 runs on the board after 20 overs and that didn’t prove to be enough as the batting got easy later in the game.

Man of the Match and Rajasthan Royals skipper, Steve Smith said:

I haven’t contributed as much as I would’ve liked through the tournament and it feels really nice to have gotten the boys over the line. Hopefully we can carry it forward from here. We can’t worry about others’ results, it’s just about us and our game.

We showed a lot of courage to pull them back to 160 and executed our plans really well. It’s never good when you don’t take your catches, but Jofra pulled it back really well for us with the ball and was terrific.

Parag was really impressive; I have been watching him in the nets and with the bat looks like a seasoned campaigner. He’s a great kid and has a great future, I hope I was as confident when I was 17. When you are young and come into a team you have a carefree attitude and kept playing his shots.

We just need to stay focussed on the processes, we just need to turn up and win. Every game’s a final, and we have to win each one. Let’s hope it turns out well for us.

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