Mumbai put pressure on KKR after massive NRR boosting win against Royals

Before Tuesday’s match between Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals, the debate was about whether Rajasthan could win against a misfiring Mumbai and make their last game against Kolkata Knight Riders a virtual pre-qualifier, as the winner then would have gone through to the Playoffs directly. 

But amidst all this, Mumbai Indians, who were languishing at the bottom of the table owing to their awful net run rate, worked in silence and roared loud after a massive victory against the Royals. 

The Paltan chased the target of 91 in just 8.2 overs, and received a huge net run rate boost, shooting themselves up to -0.048 from a dismal -0.453 prior to this game. This is huge in the context that they have now forced Kolkata Knight Riders to go back to the drawing board and think about winning their next game by a comfortable margin since a streaky win might throw them out of the qualification spots. 

This victory, the second biggest in terms of balls remaining for Mumbai was courtesy of some brilliant bowling by Nathan Coulter-Nile, Jimmy Neesham and Jasprit Bumrah who picked, four, three and two wickets each respectively to restrict Rajasthan to only 90 in their 20 overs. 

Later on, with the help of Ishan Kishan’s 50 off just 25 balls, the Mumbai Indians chased down the total in only 8.2 overs. 

As things stand, KKR and Mumbai both have 12 points from 13 games and both need to play one game each. KKR are at +0.294 and MI at -0.048. The fact that KKR would be playing their match ahead of Mumbai’s last match against Sunrisers Hyderabad on the last day of the league stage, makes the Playoffs scenario even more interesting as Mumbai would know exactly what to do in their last game.