IPL 2022: MI vs PBKS-MI run out of power, crashing to fifth straight loss

Having strengthened their bowling at the cost of batting depth, Mumbai Indians twice committed the cardinal sin of T20 – losing wickets to run-outs – and ran out of hitting power in a tense chase of 199. In a high-scoring match full of sparkling boundaries, Punjab Kings prevailed by the margin of 12 runs – two sixes – to pick up their third win in five games. Mumbai did a lot right in the match including winning the toss, and two of their young batters. 

Dewald Brevis and Tilak Varma, gave the match its most dizzying passage of play when they put on 84 off 41 balls, but none of it mattered as far as the result went. They remain winless after five matches. Agarwal and Dhawan set things up. Mayank Agarwal came into this game having made three successive single-digit scores, each of them the result of early aggression not quite coming off. That run of low scores didn’t change his approach, as he provided the early ammunition for PBKS to charge to 65 for 0 after six overs – the fourth-highest powerplay total of the season and the highest in Pune.

Agarwal’s most concentrated burst of hitting came in the fifth over, when he went 4, 4, 6 against the legspinner M Ashwin. The six was particularly impressive both for intent and execution – he stretched out and wasn’t quite to the pitch of the ball, which was also turning away from his hitting arc, but he went through with the shot anyway and cleared the fielder at long-off.He tried a similar shot in the 10th over off the same bowler, but miscued it to bring an opening partnership of 97 to its end. Shikhar Dhawan wasn’t necessarily less attacking during that stand, but Mumbai’s bowlers found him a little easier to tie down by denying him room.

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Very first time MI has lost 5 opening matches back to back

Even though the best shot of his innings – a ramp over the keeper off Jasprit Bumrah – came when he had next to no room. Mumbai pull things back. By the end of the 17th over, when Dhawan fell for 70 off 50 balls, it had dipped to 182.Various components of Mumbai’s strengthened bowling attack – they went with five out-and-out bowlers on the day – contributed to this fightback – for instance, having given away 17 in his first over, Ashwin conceded only 17 in his next three – but foremost among them was Bumrah.

Mumbai’s spearhead targeted the yorker length right through his four overs, no matter what phase he was bowling in, and generally got it right. On one occasion he got it spectacularly right, bursting through Liam Livingstone to bowl him for 2. He ended the match as the most economical bowler on either side, with figures of 4-0-28-1.

In the end, PBKS exceeded the total that had been forecast before Agarwal’s dismissal. This was thanks primarily to Jitesh Sharma, who clattered Jaydev Unadkat for two sixes and two fours in a 23-run 18th over, on his way to an unbeaten 30 off 15 balls. There was impressive range to his shot-making, which included both a bent-knee drive for six over extra-cover and a shuffling reverse-scoop over short third.Shahrukh Khan did his bit too, muscling two straight sixes off Basil Thampi in the final over, and PBKS set a target that would severely challenge a truncated Mumbai line-up.

Mumbai had only six proper batters and Unadkat slotted at No. 7. This, however, didn’t cause the top order to bat with extra care. Rohit Sharma, over his form, set the tone by attempting two lap-sweeps in the first over, off Vaibhav Arora. He edged one for four, and he middled the other for six. Having taken him to 28 off 16, though, Rohit’s aggression cost him his wicket, when Kagiso Rabada cramped him for room on the pull. Then Arora got the ball to move off the seam and nicked off Ishan Kishan, and Mumbai were 32 for 2 in the fifth over.