MI 167/7 (20 Ovs)
RR 168/7 (19.4 Ovs)
Rajasthan Royals won by 3 wkts
Keep all those heart patients away. Another night, another thriller, another chase from nowhere. Mumbai have done their usual bit of warming up, Rajasthan of keeping a fortress. It's back to the one-match-days from tomorrow. This was Vineet Anantharaman in the company of Pratyush Sinha, Sriram, Ramakrishnan, Varun Dikshit and our scorer Shashikant Singh bringing you all the action. Until next time, ta ta!!
Jofra Archer | MoM: It is good to be back on the park after missing the first few games. We just wanted to restrict them after it looked like they would get to 190. Stokesy had a chat with us at the half way stage and told us we needed to restrict them. That's exactly what we did and then chased it down (swag smile). It was a bit nervy coming to the end, when we needed 40 in 20, but with the talent we had in the line up we knew it would be easy. The heartbeat hasn't come down as yet; still pumping from that win.
Ajinkya Rahane | Winning skipper: I still can't believe what happened. I just want to give credit to my bowlers for the way they came back after 14 overs because it looked like they'd get to 180-190. But in the end KG's knock was unbelievable. In the time-out the plan was to take it deep. We knew we had hitters like Jos, Ben, Klassen and Jofra who could hit the ball a long way. We knew that we were always just two big shots away. Rahul batted really well at the top of the order last year, and that is the combination we wanted to go in with. It looks like we'll still continue with that. We are happy to see Jofra back, his spell and the way Jaydev and Dhawal bowled in the middle overs was the key. Jofra can bowl at 140+ and his pace and accuracy was amazing. He's always thinking about wickets and when you do that your mindset is always positive which is the way to go about.
Gowtham: On top of the world. I had a decent first-class year. The captain asked me to believe and that's what I did. It worked. You just need a good hit with 6 needed off 3 balls. That's what I was thinking when I denied the single.
Samson: How many ever runs you score, the man who wins the match for the team is the best (smiles). Very happy for Gowtham. Winning the game is the most important thing for me. Would not have mattered if I scored a fifty and got the orange cap in a losing cause. I need to finish games for my team.
Rohit Sharma | Losing skipper: Not easy, especially towards the end. Have to give credit to them; they played well. Not easy to score 10 an over given how the wicket was playing. I think (not finishing well with the bat) hurt us. We didn't capitalize on the start. Second or third time we have done that. I hope we can learn from the mistakes. Wasn't easy (towards the end of the innings), because they were taking the pace off but we needed to be smarter. It is not easy, which is probably the reason why I haven't been critical about my bowling unit. 20 runs more would have made the difference.
23:50 local: The thrillers refuse to die. Also Mumbai just can't seem to come on the right side of them. At the 14th over stage the Royals were cruising, they had no business of taking this this close. And then Bumrah triggered a collapse, Mustafizur made it longer. But Gowtham, having only warmed the MI bench for the whole of 2017 showed them what they'd missed. In a display of sheer timing which included refusing singles, not just slogging, he sealed it, with two balls still in the bank. But let's take nothing away from Samson, who did everything to set it up, and let someone else take the champagne. Mumbai have a lot to ponder, not least the lengths and the speeds they bowled in the final overs. It's almost turning into one of those situations of finding ways to lose from any situation. Stay on, interviews lined up.
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