Pacer Harshal Patel claimed his maiden five-wicket to help Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) restrict defending champions Mumbai Indians (MI) to 159/9 in the first match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 at MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai on Friday.
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Skipper Virat Kohli won the toss and opted to bowl first. Then the bowler took over with Patel playing the role of wrecker-in-chief for RCB.
Patel, 30, returned with figures of 5/27, which included a sensational final over of 3/1 - one run for wickets of Kieron Pollard, (19.2), Marco Jansen (19.4) and Rahul Chahar (19.6).
For the record, despite bosting, probably the most dangerous middle-order in the IPL, the five-time champions from Mumbai managed just 25 runs from the last four overs, which is their lowest since 2016.
Earlier, Rajat Patidar made his IPL debut as Devdutt Padikkal continued to recuperate from COVID-19. RCB also handed franchise debuts to Glenn Maxwell, Kyle Jamieson and Dan Christian. South African Marco Jensen, playing for MI, makes his IPL too. But the big news is the return of Chris Lynn at the top of the order.
Playing XIs:
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (c), Chris Lynn, Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan (wk), Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard, Krunal Pandya, Marco Jansen, Jayant Yadav, Trent Boult, Jasprit Bumrah.
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (c), Rajat Patidar, AB de Villiers (wk), Glenn Maxwell, Daniel Christian, Washington Sundar, Kyle Jamieson, Harshal Patel, Mohammed Siraj, Shahbaz Ahmed, Yuzvendra Chahal.
