Twitter Reactions: RCB casts doubts over MI's qualification scenario with a brutal all-round performance

Well, Well, Well! The five-time champions Mumbai Indians are struggling to defend their title in IPL 2021. They came across a different Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) unit on Sunday evening which had its plans set and bowled sensationally to turn the game on its head. To top it off, their death bowler Harshal Patel picked up a hattrick to literally end the contest in the 17th over itself.

Not that MI were winning easily prior to that over but had hopes intact with two of their big hitters, Hardik Pandya and Kieron Pollard in the middle. They needed 60 runs from four overs and the pressure was on the bowler given the reputation of the batters. But Harshal brought his variations to the fore to light up the venue. First it was a cross seamed slower delivery which Hardik looked to slog only to top-edge.

Then it was a brilliant strangle down the leg-side of Pollard who walked too much across his stumps only to see his leg-stump disturbed. And then the slower delivery to Rahul Chahar was too good who missed a full toss while expecting a yorker. RCB were cock-a-hoop in the middle and there were about 11 Imran Tahir’s running on the field celebrating the hattrick.

However, MI had themselves to blame as they threw away a good start from the openers. Quinton de Kock and Rohit Sharma batted superbly in the powerplay. Things began to change when they got out and RCB’s spinners, Yuzvendra Chahal and Glenn Maxwell, took control.

Credit to Virat Kohli’s captaincy for making correct changes and it paid off on the occasion with them picking three and two wickets respectively. After the hattrick, Harshal Patel came back for his final over to skittle Adam Milne and end MI’s innings for just 111 runs in the 19th over.

Glenn Maxwell and Kohli shine with the bat for RCB

Earlier, RCB were put into bat first and they lost Devdutt Padikkal in the second over to the genius Jasprit Bumrah who delivered a Test match line to induce an edge. However, KS Bharat and the ‘old’ Virat Kohli batted well to add 68 runs for the second wicket. Kohli is slowly returning to his top notch form and he deservedly got to his half-century.

But the real impetus to the innings was given by Glenn Maxwell who has now mastered his reverse shots. The man from Australia played around 6-7 reverse hits on the day off both spinners and pacers and timed all of them, a few for maximum as well. Things were looking ominous at one stage for MI with Maxwell and AB de Villiers in the middle in the final four overs.

The death overs phase started well for them too with De Villiers taking on Bumrah. Maxwell had by then crossed the 50-run mark, set to unleash in the last few overs. But Bumrah, MI’s saviour of the day, dismissed both batters to restrict RCB for just 165 runs in their 20 overs. Nevertheless, it proved very much enough eventually, with MI capitulating losing by 54 runs.

Here’s how Twitter reacted: