Mumbai Indians lose their eighth after Rahul hits his third ton against them in IPL

Even after moving to a venue at which Mumbai Indians have excelled in their past, their nightmare run doesn’t seem to have an end. They have lost eight in eight and Lucknow Super Giants have beaten them twice.

Rahul’s love for scoring runs against MI continued

Mumbai losing matches and KL Rahul scoring 100s against them, these have been the hot topics going around after what happened today in Match 37.

Not too long ago, Rahul in the reverse fixture against Mumbai, had scored a 100 off 56 balls and helped Lucknow to score 199/4. In that fixture, Rahul joined Virat Kohli (vs GL), Chris Gayle (vs PBKS) and David Warner (vs KKR), to hit two tons against a team in the IPL.

Heading into this match, Rahul had scored 764 runs in 15 innings against Mumbai at an average of 76.4 with five half-centuries and two centuries. In match 37, he extended his runs as well as his century count against the franchise. By registering the third ton against Mumbai, Rahul now has the most tons for a player against a team in IPL as well as in all T20s. Overall, this was his eight 50+ score in IPL against Mumbai, which is also the most by a player against the franchise in T20s. Rahul joined Kohli in an elite list of batsmen to score two centuries against an opponent in both fixtures of the league stage.

To add more, he became the second Indian batsman and the third Asian batsman to score six centuries, which is the joint most. Rohit and Babar Azam are the other two to share six centuries.

The lone scorer

Despite Rahul scoring a century, Lucknow only posted 168 runs in their full quota of 20 overs in the first innings. No other batsmen scored 25+ or had a strike rate of over 130.

In the first innings, when a team had witnessed a century from a batter, only Delhi Capitals against Punjab Kings in 2020 had posted a lower score. Shikhar Dhawan had scored an unbeaten 106 while batting first, but Delhi posted only 164/5 in their full 20 overs.

Kishan fading away badly

Everyone thought the price tag pressure would mount on Ishan Kishan and he could underperform. But, he proved the critics wrong when he scored an 81 (168.7 SR) in the first match and backed it up by a 54 (125.6).

However, post those two matches, the expectations creeped up and Kishan is nowhere near his performances in the first two matches. In the last six innings, Kishan has one score of over 25 and in all the six innings, he has scored at less than run-a-ball.

Against Lucknow, though they were chasing an average target of 169, Kishan never got off the block. At the end of the powerplay, Kishan had scored only six runs after facing 17 balls. His strike rate of 35.3 in the powerplay was the second lowest for a Mumbai batsman in an innings in the first six overs after facing 15+ balls. Interestingly, the top spot is also occupied by the left hander.

Even after playing out the powerplay, Kishan failed to capitalize as he was dismissed in the eighth over. He had added only two runs in his three balls outside the powerplay. His innings was the first instance of a Mumbai batsman scoring at a strike rate of less than 50 after facing 20+balls. Overall, only two top order (1-7) batsmen, Yashpal Singh (30) for KKR against RR in 2009 and MS Dhoni (36.4) for RPS against KKR in 2016, had a lower strike rate than Ishan Kishan (40) after batting 20+ balls in an innings.

Mumbai’s misery continues

Let be Wankhede or any other ground, the fate of Mumbai isn’t changing. The five-time IPL champions are off to the worst start by a team.

When they lost their match against Chennai Super Kings, they became the first ever team in the IPL to lose the first seven matches of a season. In their match against Lucknow, the tally extended to eight. In a season of IPL, this is the second longest streak of losses for a team. Kolkata Knight Riders in 2009, the now-defunct Pune Warriors India in 2012 & 2013 and Delhi Capitals in 2014 had lost nine consecutive games.