Ishant Sharma, after bowling the 15th over of the second innings, wouldn’t have wanted the strategic timeout. He’d been taken apart for 58 runs in four overs and an extra two and a half minutes of this torturous night, he wouldn’t have preferred. Mumbai Indians batsmen bettered Kings XI Punjab’s 199 like how Hulk thrashes Loki in Avengers. Only four of them were required and all four had 180-plus strike-rates. As for the Kings, Axar Patel was their most economical bowler at 10 runs per over.
Despite Jos Buttler, Nitish Rana and Parthiv Patel bullying the Kings XI bowlers, the best innings of the day belonged to Hashim Amla. The sage-like South African, while scoring his first T20 hundred, took apart Lasith Malinga, one of the best T20 bowlers.
His runs were not a result of savage hitting; many of it came from crisp punches and precise placement. The best shot, perhaps of the night, was a short-arm jab six off a straight, short-of-a-length Malinga delivery. Malinga went for 58 runs; 51 off it came off Amla’s willow. No one has treated him with such brutality.
Amla’s 104 wasn’t an innings that deserved a defeat. If only Kings XI had bowled better.
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