Royal Challengers Bangalore dominated Mumbai Indians in their first meeting of IPL 2023 as they blazed away to an eight-wicket win in front of their home fans on Sunday night. Batting superstars Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis were the architect of a successful chase of 172 in just 16.2 overs but the first brick of their dominating win was laid much earlier – during the Powerplay of MI innings.
It was Mohammed Siraj who left MI huffing and puffing during the fielding restrictions, a phase when the five-time IPL champions would have hoped to accumulate boundaries aplenty at M Chinnaswamy Stadium, a venue which has produced run-fest over the years.
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Siraj was sensational in the Powerplay. He delivered three of his four overs during this phase and allowed just five runs in it and accounting for the scalp of MI opener Ishan Kishan as well.
MI bowling coach Shane Bond, himself a fast bowler during his playing days, acknowledged the impact Siraj made on the outcome.
“I thought the game was set up by Mohammed Siraj’s spell – he went for five in the powerplay," Bond said during a media interaction. “I thought he was magnificent and we were always on the back foot from then so until Tilak played brilliantly for his innings, couldn’t really get much to go around them. And once simply we knew we had a chance, but yeah we were definitely runs short on a small ground."
Bond said Siraj used his bouncers well and gave MI top-order nothing to work with. “I thought you look at those first three overs from Siraj he didn’t give any width, he gave nothing up. He used his bouncer beautifully, just gave us nothing to hit and forced us to take some shots and got wickets from it. So when a guy goes for five runs, I think we’ve maybe got 29 in a powerplay on a small ground, on a good wicket. We were always well behind," he said.
“We had a long batting order we tried to up the ante and we got to 170. So I think for us, we know that if we can get a decent start, we can score all sorts of runs with the power that we have. But that opening spell was brilliant and it was too good for us today," he added.
Having been reduced to 48/4 and then 123/7, MI were carried singlehandedly to a competitive total of 172/7 by the young Tilak Varma who smashed an unbeaten 84 off 46.
“170 on a very small ground – we left runs out on the park. I think you’d want 190 plus and then we just weren’t as accurate with the ball that we needed to be. We knew how important the opening partnership was to break, but we couldn’t break it and we couldn’t even apply pressure for a sustained period of time," Bond said.
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