Both the Mumbai Indians and the Royal Challengers had their lat chance of making it to the last four which includes a lot of ifs and buts. But, the most important thing for both the teams is to ensure that they do not lose matches anymore. Well, the Mumbai Indians were a bit unlucky when they had to draw a point in one of their earlier games. At the same time, they were reluctant in defending a decent target against the Royal Challengers Bangalore and the same when they could not chase a small target against the Kings XI Punjab.
On the other hand, the Royal Challengers Bangalore never played upto their expectations and the exit of Kevin Pietersen paved the way for Anil Kumble to take over the captaincy. It looked for a while that the number games were working for Anil Kumble. A couple of days back, I had written a post regarding the action of the number on the back of Anil Kumble's T Shirt. The number ensured a win against the Mumbai Indians and the Kings Xi Punjab from a nowhere situation. There I had also cited the result of a match as a result of change in the T-Shirt number. And it exactly happened the way I thought it to be.
The RCB lost the match against the Mumbai Indians which meant the exactly opposite of what happened in their earlier meeting. So, they next go to meet the KKR who are at the bottom of the table. And losing to the hands of the KKR would prove too costly for the RCD though a loss might not be of much importance for the KKR. The RCB have won their last encounter with the KKR. So, it would be a bit wise if Kumble revert back to number 8 behind his T-Shirt to avoid any complications. May be this time also the RCB might end up victorious for, even in the previous game against the KKR, Kumble's number read 37 and not 8. So, a different result might not be witnessed.
Coming to the match between the Mumbai Indians and the RCB, it was really difficult to tell whether the pitch favored the bowlers, owing to which the MI batsmen played cautiously by not losing wickets. The MI lost only 2 wickets and didn't even post a big total and whats more? They won the match at the end of the day. Had Harbhajan been sent at number 2, 20 more runs might have been added to the MI total. Much to the surprise, Anil Kumble was rated second in the match as far as his bowling figures were considered. After this particular match, the MI are just a step ahead compared to the RCB and are a step behind w.r.t the Kings XI. If any one or both the MI as well as the RCB have to make it the semis, in addition to them winning, they have to ensure that none of the teams win anymore games. At the moment, only the KKR are found to co-operate.
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