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Five-time Indian Premier League (IPL) champions Mumbai Indians (MI) sustained a horrendous start to their campaign on April 2 (Sunday) after Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) trounced the Men in Blue by eight wickets at the M.Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. Rohit Sharma's men suffered their fifth defeat in the last six matches against RCB. It was MI's 11th consecutive defeat in their first match of an IPL season.
After the game, Mumbai's bowling coach Shane Bond showered praise on RCB pacer Mohammed Siraj, who was fantastic with the new ball and stifled MI batters by hitting the right areas on the wicket. Bond overlooked the Siraj's last over of the spell where he conceded five wide balls.
Siraj conceded just five runs in his opening three overs, including a wicket, and ended up with figures of 1/21 in four overs.
"You look at those first three overs from Siraj. He didn't give any width, he gave nothing up. He used his bouncer beautifully. He gave us nothing to hit, forced us in to take some shots, and got wickets from it," Bond told the reporters after the match.
"We were always well behind. We had a long batting order, we tried to up the ante, and we got to 170. So I think for us, we know that if we can get a decent start, we can score all sorts of runs with the power that we have. But that opening spell was brilliant and too good for us today," he said.
Chasing a competitive target of 172 runs, the Red Army rode on former skipper Virat Kohli's stylish knock of 82 not out off 49 balls and current captain Faf du Plessis' attractive innings of 73 runs off 43 balls to chase down the target in just 16.2 overs with 22 balls to spare.
Bond underlined the importance of picking wickets at regular intervals against a batting line-up that boasts immense fire-power.
"We knew how important the opening partnership was to break, but we couldn't break it, and we couldn't even apply pressure for sustained periods. We lacked a little bit of control of the ball and Faf (Faf du Plessis) and Virat (Virat Kohli) played beautifully as well. So I suppose today, in all three phases, we were outplayed," he stated.
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