Jos Buttler's manic mayhem was matched in equal measure by spin twins Ravichandran Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal as Rajasthan Royals beat Mumbai Indians by 23 runs in an IPL match on Saturday (April 2).
Buttler (100 off 68 balls) scored his second IPL ton off only 66 balls to help the Royals to 193 for 8, which seemed slightly sub-par due to Jasprit Bumrah's (3/17 in 4 overs) brilliant effort.
MI skipper Rohit Sharma, who scored 10 off 5, rued his sides consecutive loss in the IPL 2022, this time against RR. While lavishing praise on Tilak Varma (61 off 33) and Ishan Kishan (54 off 33), Rohit said that RR's total of 193 could have been chased had the two batters batted till the end.
"I thought they batted well to get to 193. Buttler played an exceptional innings, we tried everything we could to get him out. But I thought 193 on that pitch could've been chased, especially when we needed 70 in 7 overs," Rohit said after the match.
"But these things can happen and its early days. We can learn. (Positives) Few. Bumrah bowling well. Mills as well. And Tilak played exceptionally. And Ishan's batting was terrific. I thought one of those two batting till the end would've made the difference. (Suryakumar's fitness) He is a key player for us. Once he gets fit, he comes in straight but we want him to recover since finger injuries are tricky," he added.
While Royals have now won two out of two, MI have lost both their games in another dismal start to an IPL season.
In the end, there were two factors that combined to bring about MI's downfall.
Firstly, it was Buttler's (11 fours and five sixes) assault against MI's weak-links like Basil Thampi and Murugan Ashwin that made the difference. Three such overs yielded 73 runs and even Bumrah's brilliance didn't seem to be enough in the final context of the match.
And then while bowling, in between overs 14 and 16, Chahal-Ashwin combination gave away only 16 runs and the chase was derailed.
