Ireland vs India, 1st T20I - Commentary

Ireland vs India, 1st T20I - Live Cricket Score, Commentary

IND 208/5 (20.0 Ovs)

IRE 132/9 (20.0 Ovs)

India won by 76 runs

PLAYER OF THE MATCH
Kuldeep Yadav

Hitman and Gabbar killed the match in the first passage of play and then Kuldeep and Chahal portrayed their sorcery to complete the inevitable for Ireland. Hopefully, Ireland will be more competitive in the next match. See you on Friday. Until then, this is Varun Dixit signing off on behalf of Rishi Roy, Sagar Chawla, Ramakrishnan and Mukesh. Good bye and take good care of yourselves.

Eshan says: "Team India did not need services of KL and DK." - Virat has clarified in the post-match presentation that they will get a go in the 2nd T20I.

Virat Kohli: I can't complain about anything today. Opening combination was excellent. The last over bowled by Ireland was terrific. Great effort by Rohit and Shikhar to put us in a good position. And good strikes from MS, Raina and Pandya in the end. Bowlers did a clinical job too. We have already announced that apart from the opening combination we are going to do a lot of experiments in the middle order. We are going to be flexible in the next few T20s. We will look to throw in guys when the situation requires them to come in and try to surprise the opposition. It presents the opportunity for the batsmen who couldn't get the opportunity to bat. The guys who couldn't get a chance today will get an opportunity in the next match. The guys had a great time in IPL but they need to get time in the middle here too. The team management decided to give a go to everyone in the squad. The guys are fine with this decision. We are looking to give everyone game-time and want them to portray the qualities they possess because many guys go on tour and never get an opportunity to play.

Kuldeep Yadav, Man of the match: This is my first trip to the UK and it has started well. I think the wicket was good to bat on and it was turning a little bit but wristspinners exploit even that little bit of turn in the wicket. We bowled variations and tried to bowl in the right areas. We talk a lot during the games when we bowl. First Chahal bowled and he told me that pitch is little slow. England are playing good cricket but if we use variations nicely it will be difficult for England too.

Gary Wilson: They are a world-class side and their lads at the top played beautifully. I expected it to be a good wicket, I did not expect it to spin as it did in the second innings. We could have bowled spinners in the powerplay. You can always do things differently when things don't go your way. Simi had a very good tour of Netherland so we pushed him up the order. We are going to have a chat to tackle their spinners. Shannon had a good match so that is one positive we can take from this match.

19:14 Local Time, 18:14 GMT, 23:44 IST: The chase was never really on once India ran away to a total of 208. Ireland opener James Shannon rode his luck for his maiden T20I fifty, off 29 balls, but the hosts never kept up with the required rate which climbed to a daunting 14rpo as early as the halfway mark. And once the Indian wristspinners took control, the hosts had no answers. With the batsmen needing to go after them, Kuldeep and Chahal slipped in their variations to wreck havoc through the middle. It was India's opening partnership with the bat of course which knocked the stuffing out of Ireland. Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan's massive 160-run stand put any semblance of a contest out of the window. It will take some doing for Ireland to bounce back from this pasting. Time for the presentation.

Delhi Daredevils vs Rajasthan Royals, 32nd Match

DD 196/6 (17.1 Ovs)

RR 146/5 (12.0 Ovs)

Delhi Daredevils won by 4 runs (DLS method)

PLAYER OF THE MATCH
Rishabh Pant

We witnessed an absolute humdinger today. In the end, the Royals from Rajasthan fell short by a hit. Pant and Buttler almost matched each other shot by shot but RR missed the innings which Iyer and Shaw played for DD. I am sure you all would have enjoyed this thrilling Northern Derby, join us again tomorrow for KKR vs CSK. Until then, this isVarun Dixit signing off on behalf of Pratyush Sinha, Abhinand, Kumar Abhisekh Dasand Hariprasad along with our scorer Harish. Goodnight and take good care!

Rishabh Pant - It is going great for me. Win is more important for me. No added responsibility for being the retained player. I am using some different tricks to counter the bowlers. We are being positive because we know if we lose one more match we are out of the tournament. Intent is the same in every match we play.

Shreyas Iyer - It was a very important victory for us. This wicket is very good and even 200 is very less. Bowlers kept their nerve and we came back strong. I dropped the catch but we won the match, we should look forward. Start that Shaw is giving is amazing and Pant's role in the middle is pivotal. It is important for us to win all the matches. Ponting is a positive guy and no one is thinking negative in the dressing room. It is difficult to bowl with the ground being small, it is really tough to control when the batsmen start hitting.

Trent Boult, Purple Cap holder - To get few games and test my skill set is good fun. It is a learning curve. Obviously, trying to back myself and trying to pick brains of some people. We are off to Hyderabad tomorrow. We will see how it goes there. We are taking it game by game. Pant is a quality and fearless cricketer. He goes out there and plays his shots.

Ajinkya Rahane - Disappointing to lose this game. We batted incredibly well. Jos upfront was magnificent. The wicket was pretty good. We were trying to bowl hard lengths but we did not execute well. It is a learning phase for our bowlers. We are still in the tournament. Upfront he (Buttler) is a very dangerous player and good for us that he is in form. We all believe that we can win all our games and make it to the play-offs. We have always taken one game at a time. It is all in the mind now and we will have to show character.

Most consecutive wins vs an opponent in IPL (includes Super Over wins):
8 RCB v DD (2011-15)
8 KKR v KXIP (2014-17)
7 CSK v DD (2012-15)
7 RR v DD (2013-2018) - streak ended today

Narrowest margin of wins for DD in IPL (by runs):
1 v RR, Delhi, 2012
4 v SRH, Vizag, 2015
4 v RR, Delhi, 2018 **
7 v RPS, Delhi, 2017

00:41 Local Time, 19:11 GMT, 00:41 IST: The 22 yards at the Kotla was a belter and we have been greeted with a cracker of a match here. We finally got to see Buttler (67 off 26 balls) in full flow this season and his innings put RR in a commanding position. But Short failed to strike the ball cleanly from the other end in the middle overs and played a miserable knock, albeit making up with a 25-ball 44 later. That killed the flow of the chase. After the departure of Buttler, RR's innings came apart, there was a valiant effort from Gowtham in the end but he failed to replicate his heroics in the last over today.

Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Mumbai Indians, 31st Match -

RCB 167/7 (20.0 Ovs)

MI 153/7 (20.0 Ovs)

Royal Challengers Bangalore won by 14 runs

PLAYER OF THE MATCH
Tim Southee

Another loss for Mumbai Indians and they join Delhi - just 2 wins in eight games. The equation for them is to win all the matches from here. Rohit's MI have done it in the past. Can they do it again? We'll find out. On the other hand, there's the oxygen for RCB. They have won a match without their star performer - AB de Villiers. His comeback will only boost their line-up. The action moves to Delhi tomorrow - where a struggling Daredevils host Rajasthan Royals. Join us there. Until then, it's a goodbye from all of us down here.

Southee, Man of the Match: Nice to come here and play. Nice to finally get a win on the board. We've come close in the last two games. There was a little bit of swing which you've never seen here in the earlier games. I think we scraped through to a good score. Last over was crucial. Colin's innings gave us the momentum. We still had to bowl well to defend this score. The belief's still good. We have come close. Nice to get over the line. It's nice to get a win under the belt.

Kohli: Jeez, we needed that win. Very important win at such an important stage of the tournament. In the last couple of games, we were picking up. Tonight was an occasion we need that two points. This is the push we needed. We might have spoken about too many things in the past. To the bowlers, we said, 'back your gut feel to bowl yorkers, take your fields.' To confuse them, doesn't help too much. Everyone bowled really well. Umesh's over. Colin's over with the bat. The one over that JP bowled and Manan targeted, that was game-changing. Manan took the game away from them. We needed impact performances to get those two points. We had good intent, results are around the corner. The result went our way. We should take this confidence forward. My wife is here and it's her birthday. This was a little gift for her. It was very important to achieve this two points in front of her.

McCullum: Yeah, feeling good. We were close in the last few games and didn't cross the line. Sometimes losing is a habit just as winning can be. But nice to give back something to the crowd who have been outstanding and have backed us. I thought we bowled well last time, just didn't finish the job at the end. Today, Siraj and Umesh were outstanding, they kept bowling good line and lengths and made tough for the batsmen, Tim Southee as well. They are starting to realize the structure now and the plans are starting to get better. The skills were superb, I thought they were excellent with the use of the slower balls, the cross-seamers were effective and hit the deck hard. We were under some pressure, but I thought we were desperate in the field, kept egging each other and hopefully results will follow. We will celebrate tonight, take the plane for the next match and try and do the same once again.

Rohit Sharma: It is disappointing to be on the losing side. We got ourselves to blame though. Didn't play smart cricket which was required, losing wickets in the powerplay didn't help, that's where we lost the game. We wanted to keep ticking with the scoreboard, partnerships would have helped us. Credit to RCB, they bowled really well, it was a tough wicket and they kept us guessing all the time and it made things very difficult for us. I think our bowling was good, we would have taken 167 at the start of play, but we could have kept them down to some 10-15 runs short. We came back well after that partnership between Kohli and McCullum, but as I said, we made silly mistakes, it shouldn't happen at this stage of the tournament and that cost us. We still need to have the belief in ourselves, we can't lose hope, need to win almost all our games now. We need to keep to the basics, I feel we still have a good chance to qualify for the knock-out phase of the tournament.

50 & three-fer coming in a loss (IPL):
Yuvraj 50 & 3/22 v RCB, 2009
Yuvraj 66*& 4/29 v DD, 2011
Yuvraj 83 & 4/35 v RR, 2014
Hardik 50 & 3/28 v RCB, 2018*

Most wides conceded in an IPL innings:
19 KXIP v KTK, Indore, 2011
18 RCB v RR, Jaipur, 2008
18 RR v KKR, Mumbai BS, 2015
18 RCB v MI, Bengaluru, 2018*

MI after first eight matches each season:
2008: 4-4
2009: 3-5
2010: 7-1
2011: 6-2
2012: 4-4
2013: 5-3
2014: 2-6
2015: 3-5
2016: 4-4
2017: 6-2
2018: 2-6

Kohli can finally afford a smile on his face. He needed this win badly, the fans needed this. This is RCB's third win in this season and all three have come here at the Chinnaswamy. This wasn't the typical Chinnaswamy track and a score of 167 has been defended. The seamers set it up and they finished it in style. Southee removed Kishan in the very first over and Umesh Yadav picked two in two deliveries, which put the visitors on the back foot. Their overseas batsmen - didn't contribute much as Pollard fell to a lazy stroke and Duminy to lethargic running. It was up to the Pandya brothers to take their team over the line, but they couldn't - courtesy RCB's death bowling. Yes, you read that right. Credit to Southee and Siraj, who managed to execute their plan with yorkers and cutters. They conceded just 20 off the last three overs. And, don't forget Colin de Grandhomme. A match-changing cameo with the bat towards the end and he was outstanding in the field. Presentations coming up..

Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Kolkata Knight Riders, 29th Match

RCB 175/4 (20.0 Ovs)

KKR 176/4 (19.1 Ovs)

Kolkata Knight Riders won by 6 wkts

PLAYER OF THE MATCH
Chris Lynn

If you were looking for answers to RCB's bowling troubles, they're not here yet. Kohli was brilliant, their batsmen put up a reasonable score, but reasonable's not good enough for them right now. Maybe next time. That's all from the double-header today. It's a goodnight from Sagar Chawla, Pradeep Krishnamurthy, Vineet Anantharaman, Srivathsa, Sriram and our scorer Vinod.

Third successive win for KKR against RCB at Chinnaswamy
2016: By five wkts
2017: By six wkts
2018: By six wkts

Chris Lynn, MoM: Sort of been that type of season for me. Hasn't been freeflowing. Not easy on those kind of wickets. Had to find a way, and bit of luck on my side tonight. Too hard to hit down the ground, those boys had it on a string there. Sweeping was the method which I found to work for me. Got to play every situation. Kolkata doesn't turn as much, gets through quicker. Might be easier to score boundaries there. Whatever the team needs, I'll do the job. Body is getting there. Support staff have been very good. Schedule's tight, but I'm keeping the body intact. Got to keep the moustache now. Was going to get rid of it yesterday. Now we've got to get it trending in Kolkata. It's all about having fun here in the IPL.

Karthik, KKR captain: There's nothing special, nothing too bad about it, we're right in the middle. Important we use some momentum that we got here Thought it was a par score. With AB not being there, we knew Virat was the big wicket. But he's Virat, he came out all guns blazing. I'm somebody who believes in trusting the eleven players, not making too many changes. I have a lot of time for them in life (U-19 players). They're great kids. They're learning. After winning a World Cup you generally have a bit of a chip on the shoulder, but not these guys. Credit to Rahul Dravid too. They always have to say good things about him. When somebody like that is a coach at the U-19 level, it's going to help you. Always trying to make sure to win the game. It's always the path I'm trying to take when I go into bat.

Sunil Narine: The lesser the wickets we lose at the top the better it is for us. We set a platform for the rest in the middle-order to come and finish it off. We just try to keep calm and win cricket games. Once the guys come out and give them their all we can win any game; hope we continue from strength to strength.

Virat Kohli, RCB captain: The pitch is bringing out surprises everytime we bat. Looked better than it played. 175 was a really good score I felt. If we field like that, we don't deserve to win. We need to be hard on ourselves and be more brave with the ball and in the field, we need to correct those things going forward. We didn't deserve to win with the way we fielded. We weren't just good enough tonight. I can't pin-point anything at this point. We got to win 6 out of 7 to qualify from here. We need to be in that mindset to take every match as a virtual semi-final from here and there's no room for complacency. Need guys stepping up their game at the right time. Hopefully, they understand that moving forward.

00:07 Local Time, 18:37 GMT, 00:07 IST: RCB fail to defend yet another score. A score which was at least par if not above par, on a Chinnaswamy pitch which was taking significant turn. There was much frustration for them at the start of the chase, with Narine professionally scooping the ball in gaps and then Murugan Ashwin dropping a sitter from Lynn. The rain break wouldn't have helped either. But there's no running away from the fact that their bowlers came up short again. Saying that, it wasn't a straightforward chase from KKR. Things did get tight on a couple of occasions, but the sublime cameos from Robin Uthappa and Dinesh Karthik, along with Lynn's well-swept fifty helped them wade through it.

Tejas says: "RCB have no one to blame but themselves if they go on to lose like this. Poor fielding and dropped chances are like haunting ghosts."

Rajasthan Royals vs Sunrisers Hyderabad, 28th Match

SRH 151/7 (20.0 Ovs)

RR 140/6 (20.0 Ovs)

Sunrisers Hyderabad won by 11 runs

PLAYER OF THE MATCH
Kane Williamson

Quick hop then. Switch tabs as we switch databases to Bangalore to get the second game ready for you. I wasVineet Anantharaman bringing you all the action along with Sriram, Hariprasad, Kumar Abhisekh Das, Pradeep Krishnamurthy and our scorer Vinod. Ta ta!!

Kane Williamson | Winning skipper | MoM: I think the contribution from the batting order on that surface to get 150, which was a par total, and then to squeeze well without bowling like we have in the last couple of games was incredible. They did get off to a good start, put us under pressure but it was nice for us to bounce back in the second half. The surface was definitely on the slower side, with slow turn and not a lot of bounce. They used the hard length ball well with the big boundaries, which was something we wanted to incorporate as well in our innings. I thought in the first part we were very good and were able to restrict them to a decent total. Yusuf's wicket was fortunate, probably not his best delivery, but was nice to get that wicket at that stage because he (Stokes) is such a dangerous player. The way the guys went out today, we didn't get that 10-15 more on another challenging surface but we did see an improvement, which we look to carry forward. T20 is pretty fickle in nature and it is nice to get a few wins on the board; but each game is a tough game. We need to adapt to conditions, not get ahead of ourselves, which have varied a lot and that's what we aim to build on and do going forward as well. Alex (Hales) is world class in this format; it was nice for him to get us off to a good start and it was great for him to have that opportunity

.19:27 local: They're making a habit of this. Nothing's small enough, no situation is lost-worthy enough for these guys to give up. And Hyderabad are pulling out new formulas of defence. With Rahane having anchored the chase, held up one end and cruising along with the asking rate well under control, Rajasthan had no business losing this. But Rashid continued his web, the seamers let out knuckle balls at will, and watched yet another side crumble against the asking run-rate. Rahane by no means is a hitter, and he surely wasn't helped by the English imports scratching around for form at this stage. And before they knew, it slipped. But in the end, it was that life Williamson got with some generous bit of fielding that would come back to haunt them hard. Stick around, the presentations coming up.

Chennai Super Kings vs Mumbai Indians, 27th Match

CSK 169/5 (20 Ovs)

MI 170/2 (19.4 Ovs)

Mumbai Indians won by 8 wkts

PLAYER OF THE MATCH
Rohit Sharma

Beware of that comeback. Mumbai Indians can never be written off lightly, and after today, they certainly won't. A strong performance against a very strong CSK outfit, can it get their campaign back on track? We'll see. That's it from us here. This is Sagar Chawla signing off along with Srivathsa, Abhinand Raghavendran, Kumar Abhisekh Das, Raju Peethala and our scorer Vinod. Goodnight!

Rohit, MI captain and MoM: Very much alive. Wanted this win desperately. In desperation, we didn't want to take decisions that won't go well. Wanted to stay calm. We've played good cricket. But that finishing touch wasn't happening. Today we batted well, bowled well, fielded well. If I look back at it, except the Sunrisers game where we batted poorly. Rest of the games we put on 190-plus. It was just about going in with calm heads. This game will give us confidence going forward. That was very critical (the bowlers' comeback). For me as a captain it was important to understand what will be the right combination. We still have a positive atmosphere going forward. Tough leaving out Pollard. He's done so many good things for us. He took it upon him. Going forward, don't want to dismiss him completely. He'll still be our match winner. Not dismissing any players going forward. Will be surprises going forward as well. It was the match situation (promotion to No.3). Wanted to get that right-left combination going. They've got an off-spinner, left-arm spinner and leg-spinner so we wanted to keep them guessing.

Suryakumar Yadav: It (a good start) was very important on this wicket. It was a good wicket to bat on, so the start was very important. It's one of those days, he (Lewis) missed it. I know he's a brilliant player. I just tried to find the gaps, hit the boundaries and collect singles and couples. I enjoyed the new role (opening). We had only eight games left, and it was important to win this game. Beating one of the best teams in the tournament, coming here and taking the momentum - it's going to help us in the coming games. We needed him (Rohit). It's important for him as well. The way he batted was brilliant.

MS Dhoni: I think it is important to realize what went wrong. And in the league stage, you will lose. A lot of times we have seen individuals winning it for us. This was one game where we were short by 10-15 runs. Mumbai Indians bowled really well in the middle overs.The wicket had some balls coming on to you very quickly. Playing the cross batted shots was not easy. Choice of deliveries can improve from our bowlers. Overall, we would have liked to add 20-25 runs more. A loss makes you humble. It tests the other batsmen and bowlers. Also, if you keep winning you don't know what area you need to work on. It was a good game for us. We have won quite a few games. We now have time to analyze what needs to be done. Overall, it was a tight game and ended in the last over. You should not lose in the 14th or the 15th over, because that will affect the run-rate.

CSK will rue the final ten overs of their innings, where they could muster only 78 after a powerful start. That's where the match was set up for Mumbai and they have Mitchell McClenaghan in particular to thank for it who got rid of Dhoni and Bravo in one over.

11.45pm local: A pressure chase for MI with so much hanging on it, and their captain steps up in style. What a knock from Rohit Sharma. His team needed big changes to revive their floundering campaign. He made the tough call of dropping Pollard. Promoted himself to No.3 when the situation was getting tense, and sealed it off with a match-winning fifty. Suryakumar Yadav was good again at the top, Lewis just about salvaged a painstaking knock with a few lusty blows to take the pressure off and then the class of the skipper took centrestage.

Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Chennai Super Kings, 24th Match

RCB 205/8 (20 Ovs)

CSK 207/5 (19.4 Ovs)

Chennai Super Kings won by 5 wkts

PLAYER OF THE MATCH
MS Dhoni

Kohli will get a lot of flack for bowling out his key bowlers very early and the team selection of course, but come on, whatever your name is, you got to back yourself to defend 45 off 18 balls. Kohli wants his bowlers to learn, hopefully they do quickly. He was gutted in the interview post-match, but took it with a smile. By the way, Dhoni gave away some gems as to what the ideal role of a finisher is. Scroll down for a good read. On that note, we bid goodbye and enjoyed bringing this riveting contest to you. We'll back in a matter of hours with SRH v KXIP of course. Goodnight!

Phew! Why does this CSK team like to test our hearts everytime they go out to play? Five of their six games were decided in the final over. You definitely got to feel for RCB. 205 on the board, CSK literally down and out. Just a matter of getting Rayudu/Dhoni with about 100 runs needed in 7 overs, but Dhoni was just sooooo cool in the Garden city that was cooled by the rain in the evening. And hey, rain gods, thanks a lot for just watching the cricket from up above. You were kind!

Highest ratio of sixes to fours in an IPL match:
1.83 CSK v RCB, Bengaluru, 2018 (33:18)
1.55 CSK v KKR, Chennai, 2018 (31:20)
1.29 DD v GL, Delhi, 2017 (31:24)
1.18 KXIP v RCB, Indore, 2017 (20:17)

Highest successful chases by CSK in IPL:
206 v RCB, Bengaluru, 2018*
206 v RCB, Chennai, 2012
203 v KKR, Chennai, 2018
193 v KXIP, Dharamsala, 2010
188 v DD, Delhi, 2008

Dhoni (2/2): "Shardul will get better. The more he is under the pump, the better he will get as the tournament progresses. It's important to know the overs that are left and who will bowl the death overs, who is their best bowler on that particular wicket and who you can take on. You may win or lose, but it's about getting the process right.Not everybody knows what kind of a game is theirs and what really is their strength. You will score runs with the experience you have got, but if you can help the other batsman with what to play, run quicker between the wickets, tell what the bowler could do with his batting style etc. All these things really matter, and that's what I feel is the job of the finisher. It's not just about me batting at the death. Sharing the experience with the youngsters or whoever is batting and helping them getting the score is key, because tomorrow I may not be batting with him or I may get out, he needs to do the job. Rayudu's batting is very important for us, he keeps the scoreboard moving."

MS "Cool" Dhoni is the Man of the Match: (1/2) "I thought when we had the innings break this was difficult to chase because when I was keeping, I felt AB batted well to get them to 200 runs and it was tough to score. I thought it was 15-20 beyond par score. The key for us was the two left-handers but we lost them early. Just had to hang around there. This is a small ground, ball travels and there was just a bit of dew and it worked in our favour. Rayudu batted really well. Got a very good partnership and then Bravo striking at the end, overall it went perfectly according to the script. Not exactly as we had planned, but still the script was good. This was a slightly slowish wicket and that's why AB's knock was special. It wasn't an easy wicket, it was not a wicket where you could bat like that, credit to him. Happy that people are chipping in for us and we are chasing down big totals and at the same time it is a good exposure for some of our death bowlers."

Kohli (2/2): "Pitch has played really well, we are happy with that. Spin came as a massive factor, both for us and for them. But quality batting from both sides getting 200-plus. Great game for people to see but as a team, we are disappointed to not get across the line. (On Rayudu being another of the young batting talents) He is not young, has been around 15 years, been around forever (smiles). Quality player and we all know that. Has done well in the IPL and domestic, also has done well for India too. You never know who gets the opportunities. Deserves the applause. I am happy for him. (On MSD) Great to see him strike a few, not against us though. We wouldn't have liked that. He's hitting the ball really well this IPL. He is in a happy space, batting higher up and expressing himself. Seems to be enjoying it. Credit to him as well."

Virat Kohli (1/2): "(On the loss) Many things that we can look at. The way we bowled is just not acceptable. Just not good enough on the day, 72/4 and giving away runs like that for just 1 wicket is criminal. Something that we need to address going forward because we haven't bowled well. If we cannot defend even 200, it's a problem somewhere. It hurts at the moment, very tough for us to swallow but great game for Chennai. (Whether RCB has better bench strength) You have to back the guys who are on the park and need to give them confidence to execute what they have to. They need to be clear in their plans and execute well. We weren't brave enough with the ball, somewhere there was that hesitation of the opposition overcoming them."

Rayudu - Orange Cap holder: "Unbelievable. Lost a few wickets early. We were constructing the innings. We had the belief, but this ground made it really possible. I am hitting the ball well, so the batting position doesn't really matter to me. We were calculating how many overs each guy had and we wanted to play out Chahal because he was looking the most threatening there. Really happy that we won."

Post-winning scenes: Dhoni with his coolness and swagger was lifted by Harbhajan - must be said for the offie, that is a routine thing as far as IPL is concerned. Watson, Billings, Wood, Faf and Willey were up and shouting their lungs off as the ball left MS's bat. They were all sitting in a group.

After tonight's loss one has to wonder whether it is a mental thing with RCB losing to CSK. So many close games and every single time, they have come out on the losing end. It can't be skill or any other factor. Similar to South Africa in ICC events. There's something that the human brain can't comprehend! We'll leave it there and let you decide!

It was not all about Dhoni though. Rayudu played his part with a massive innings and he fed off MS's self-belief not to play the rash shot and gift his wicket away when his side were in trouble after losing four wickets. The asking rate was touching 14, 15, 16 at various points, but nothing flustered the duo. Maybe Kohli made a mistake by bowling out Umesh and Chahal but you can turn that around and say what if he was trying to get MS and Rayudu out. That would've sealed the game right there. Kohli was outstanding as captain but he met a bigger match in MS and that's where the game was won and lost.

23:52 Local Time, 18:22 GMT, 23:52 IST: MS Dhoni is the GOAT! As a finisher! GOAT in terms of being cool. In all sport! Just the swagger after he saw the ball go over wide long-on. A mischievous I know it I can win from anywhere smirk dotted his face. Unbelievable. Really. And he keeps doing it all the time. Never doubt the man. The way he took it to the end knowing his ability to finish it off against the likes of Siraj, Negi and Anderson at the end speaks volumes about the man's innate self-belief. Never doubted himself - not one second - when he was nudging, nurdling, dabbing, pushing and eking out singles, seeing out Umesh and Chahal in the middle overs is stuff of legend.

Mumbai Indians vs Sunrisers Hyderabad, 23rd Match

SRH 118/10 (18.4 Ovs)

MI 87/10 (18.5 Ovs)

Sunrisers Hyderabad won by 31 runs

PLAYER OF THE MATCH
Rashid Khan

8 overs, one maiden, 34 runs, 5 wickets - combined bowling figures of Sid Kaul and Rashid Khan. There's the game. Out and sealed right there. There's no stopping Rashid Khan's achievements. He keeps impressing with each passing game and continues to win hearts. His spectacular bowling show, however, might have just ripped out the heart of MI's campaign this year. Their NRR will take a serious belting too. Just as we discussed before the game, MI's expiry date for their most favourite term 'comeback' is reaching its end. Takes some doing to qualify for the playoffs from here. That's for later though. Tomorrow, we have RCB taking on CSK in Bengaluru. It's raining quite heavily in the Garden city as I type this. Let's hope it stays fine for tomorrow's clash. RED or YELLOW, remember to tune in early. On behalf of Srivathsa, Pradeep Krishnamurthy, Nikhil Jadhav, Abhinand Raghavendran and our scorer Shashikant Singh, this is Raju Peethala waving goodbye from the comm. box. Cheers!!

Rashid Khan [4-1-11-2] Man of the Match: Thanks to the almighty. It feels quite good to comeback well and win the match especially after a couple of losses. We get to learn a lot of things from the coaching staff. We chat a lot to them [Moody, Murali and VVS]. They keep motivating me. If you're going well or not you have to stay relaxed and that's what Murali sir tells me. The more you enjoy out in the middle, the better you perform. I try to stay relaxed all the time and that's what brings the best out of me. Whatever you do, you have to do your basics right. We win or lose, the management has always kept us in good positive space.

KW, SRH captain: Clearly a tough surface. Without a doubt, we were expecting a lot more from our batsmen. Perhaps we could have gotten to 140 mark, but turns out 120 looked good enough on this track. It is good fun. T20 obviously so much is happening so quickly, but the guys were oustanding today. A fantastic second half for us, but we are still to put a collective performance together. There is depth in our squad which is important and we saw that today. Number of injuries and number of changes, a different balance. We held our heads high and at the same time the best part is how well the guys performed in the second half of the game.

Siddarth Kaul: It's a great feeling when you perform for your team, specially when it's pressure time. I think the domestic season went really well. I got into the India A team and then I was selected for the Indian team. Feels great when you reach the higher level. You have to just keep doing the right work. I was keeping the basics right and it works every time. Bhuvi is there, Ashish Nehra was here before. They have played awesomely at the international level. I kept learning from them and it has helped me in the pressure situations.

Rohit Sharma (MI - captain): We have got ourselves to blame. We should chase down 118 on any wicket, we didn't show character, the Sunrisers did. Very happy with the way we bowled, they did a brilliant job, but the batsmen let us down once again. There are so many points that I can talk about, but don't want to pinpoint faults now. We needed to show some intent, which we failed today. We knew it was a tough chase, shot making wasn't easy, we wanted to have intent at the start. They bowled at the right areas, kept us guessing and we couldn't recover. Few of us played some bad shots, including myself.

Sunrisers Hyderabad in IPL 2018:
Beat KKR for the first time in Kolkata after losing five previous games
Lost to KXIP the first time in Mohali after winning four previous games
Beat MI for the first time at Wankhede after losing three previous games

Lowest totals successfully defended in IPL:
116 CSK v KXIP, Durban, 2009
118 SRH v MI, Mumbai, 2018 *
119 KXIP v MI, Durban, 2009
119 SRH v PWI, Pune, 2013

Lowest all out totals of MI:
87 v KXIP, Mohali, 2011
87 v SRH, Mumbai WS, 2018 *
92 v DD, Mumbai WS, 2012
92 v RR, Jaipur, 2013
92 v SRH, Hyderabad, 2016

Both teams bowled out in an IPL match:
DC v RR, Nagpur, 2010
KKR v RCB, Kolkata, 2017
MI v SRH, Mumbai WS, 2018 *

23:47 Local Time, 18:17 GMT, 23:47 IST: Having lost the toss and having had to bat first for the first time this season, Sunrisers laboured their way to 118 and the total never looked out of reach at the halfway mark. But, but...Mumbai Indians once again allowed the pressure to consume them as they kept falling behind the eight ball with lack of strike rotation and constant gifting of wickets. They scored 26 and lost 3 wickets in the first 7 overs, but then changed gears to squeeze 24 off the next two. That perhaps was the only phase where MI grabbed the momentum, and unfortunately they left a little too much for the lower middle order to do. Just one word about Sunrisers bowling: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Rajasthan Royals vs Mumbai Indians, 21st Match

MI 167/7 (20 Ovs)

RR 168/7 (19.4 Ovs)

Rajasthan Royals won by 3 wkts

PLAYER OF THE MATCH
Jofra Archer

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.