ONE over can often change the course of a T20 game and yesterday it seemed as if Ashok Dinda had bowled that over. It was the most expensive 20th over in all IPL matches. It cost Rising Pune Supergiants 30 runs.
On another occasion, it could have cost them the match as well. On this occasion, however, Pune had already done just enough good work with the ball to keep Mumbai Indians, despite that 30-run over, down to a total of 184.
On a good batting pitch that seemed to quicken up under lights, it tested Pune’s batting, but proved just short of a winning total. Ajinkya Rahane set the chase up with 60 at a strike rate of 176.47, and Steven Smith steered them home with an ice-cool, unbeaten 84 off 54 balls.
The equation came down to 10 off three balls, but Smith wasn’t going to be beaten – he finished the match with successive sixes off Kieron Pollard.
If there was one decisive factor that separated the two sides, it may have been the composition of the two bowling attacks. Pune went into the match with two leg-spinners in Imran Tahir and Adam Zampa and a purveyor of stump-to-stump slow-medium cutters in Rajat Bhatia.
These three ended up with combined figures of 6 for 68 in 10 overs. In the other ten overs, Pune’s three faster bowlers – Dinda, Deepak Chahar and Ben Stokes – combined to take one wicket and concede 114.
Tahir and Bhatia, in particular, had profited from the slightly two-paced nature of the pitch, where they got some balls to skid on and others to stop on the batsman. When the quicker bowlers bowled, however, the ball came on to the bat far more uniformly.
Mumbai had an attack full of quicks and short on bowlers who could take the pace off the ball. They had left out Harbhajan Singh, their most capped player, and picked only one frontline spinner in Krunal Pandya.