Mumbai Indians vs Bangalore Royal Challengers Match Review

It is really disappointing to lose to the Royal Challengers. This was a game you would have felt confident of winning, but a weird team selection and a player not good enough for this level meant that the Mumbai Indians lost their opening fixture.

I won't go into a match report; you can get that at cricinfo. Tendulkar was not fit for this game, so Bhajji took over the captaincy for this game, and he didn't do too badly, I thought. The surprise selections today were Musavir Khote and Dhawal Kulkarni, both bowlers, and, to a certain extent, Dominic Thornely. And more surprisingly, both Fernando and Rahane were not selected!

I think this is where Mumbai lost it a bit. Rahane would have been a great addition to the batting line-up, and his replacement, Musavir Khote, if he can be looked upon as so, did nothing in the entire game. Didn't bat and didn't bowl. Bhajji also missed a trick by promoting Pinal Shah ahead of both Nayar and Pollock, who are much better batsmen than he is. Pinal Shah didn't do a bad job, stitching together a 50 run partnership with Uthappa at an important time, but I felt he got the run rate down a bit when he was batting. Nayar and Pollock played wonderful cameos to get Mumbai to 165, which exceeded expectations at one point of the game, but really was about 10 runs short of being a good total.

And Nehra blew it with his bowling. He is clearly not on top of his game after his injury, and he strayed often with his line and length. Kulkarni, playing his first game at this level, bowled with far greater composure, and indeed, did well to come back well after getting knocked about a bit in his first over. With Nehra leaking runs at an alarming rate, Mumbai clearly missed Fernando. It is easy to say with hindsight that Fernando should have been selected instead of Thornely, who was a bit unfortunate with his injury, but I wasn't expecting Thornely to play this game.

With 30 to win from 3 overs, Nehra decided to bowl a mixed bag of full tosses and long hops and was taken for 19. Till then it looked as if Mumbai might be able to sneak in a win with a tight over. Instead the test match XI wins the game and Mumbai are left to wonder what if.

Mumbai clearly missed having a good batsman who can score quickly in the middle overs, and a bowler who can bowl well at the death. Hopefully the inclusion of Tendulkar, Rahane and Fernando/Bravo for Nehra next match should change things a bit.

Both Jayasuriya and Pollock showed that they can still perform at this level. Jayasuriya teed off wonderfully at the start before being run-out by a throw from Zaheer that would have missed the stumps on any other day. The way he took Kallis to the cleaners for 18 runs in a single over was the highlight of the day for me. Pollock showed that experience always helps, with a miserly spell of bowling at the start of the innings, though he was helped by the fact that he bowled mostly to Dravid.

And a final word about the Mumbai crowd. Most other crowds seemed confused about whom to cheer for. No such issues with the Mumbai crowd, who have got their priorities right. Dravid was roundly booed at the toos, and in an interesting passage of play at the start of the second innings, they cheered every dot ball that Polly bowled to Dravid, and cheered louder when Bhajji dismissed him. Even in the last over, when Kulkarni bowled a couple of dot balls to Akhil, they kept hoping for atleast a draw.

Next up is Delhi away. Victory is possible, if Mumbai manage to keep the openers quiet, and shore up their batting to tackle McGrath and company. Fingers crossed.