One would reckon it is impressive that Mumbai Indians had the luxury of having their fate in their own hands when the final day of the IPL 2018 league stages came about. The equation was simple – win and through to the playoffs. But the defending champions had a repeat case of what has been their trouble at the start of the season. The same trouble that eventually resulted in Mumbai Indians failing to make the knockouts.
Playing against Delhi Daredevils on Sunday, MI faced a stiff ask in chasing down 38 runs from 18 balls with three wickets in hand. It did help that they had Ben Cutting in the middle. And the Australian cricketer’s powerful hitting off Liam Plunkett reduced that equation to 23 runs from 12 balls. Not an improbable situation in the smash-and-grab world of T20 cricket and the IPL. Trent Boult, however, put the brakes on that by conceding just five runs and Harshal Patel bowled a beautiful final over to bowl out MI. DD won by 11 runs and from what was a strong situation for MI to chase down, turned around dramatically – and in their case, proved detrimental.
Read: How Kings XI Punjab fell apart after a good start
To sum up, so close and yet so far – something they faced numerous times in the season. CSK and SRH beat them by 1 wicket; DD won with 1 ball to spare and Rajasthan Royals won with two balls to go. Four extremely close games that could have gone either way and had they been won by MI, they would be readying for the playoff matches. Alas, they didn’t.
What worked for MI
Mumbai Indians are fantastic at turning things around in the second half of the season and the escape act almost worked out this time too. The Rohit Sharma-captained side finished just one win away from the playoffs and strung together three wins in a row or four wins in six matches to give themselves a small chance as Kings XI Punjab faltered at the same time. As things started to get tough, youngsters Ishan Kishan, Mayank Markande and experienced high-profile name in Hardik Pandya made themselves count.
Read: Problems in squad selection hurt Delhi Daredevils
What didn’t work for MI
Two wins in seven matches at the start was always going to be a recipe for disaster. And that is effectively the difference between going out and progressing to the playoffs as far as Mumbai Indians are concerned. “Disappointing that we didn’t get over the finish line. There are a lot of things where I can look back and say that ‘we didn’t do this right, we didn’t do that right’ but looking at how the first half went, we gave ourselves a chance and in the second half we played really good cricket,” Rohit said after Sunday’s defeat to sum up the issue.
Read: Royal Challengers Bangalore’s poor bowling sees them out
Standout Performers
For Mumbai Indians, spinner Marakande is probably the find of the tournament. He picked up 15 wickets in the season and earned himself quite a few admirers. Also making an impact was wicketkeeper Ishan Kishan with 275 runs, nine catches and two stumpings. In the latter stages, Pandya proved to be a central figure to Mumbai’s resurgent cause with 260 runs and 18 wickets in the tournament.
League stage performance: 6 wins, 8 defeats, 12 points (fifth place)
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