Bengaluru: Mumbai Indians’ bowling coach Shane Bond lauded Mohammed Siraj for his exceptional bowling in the opening spell, stating that Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) pacer used his bouncer to great effect, forcing MI batters to take shots that ultimately resulted in wickets.
Siraj finished with figures of 1-21 in his four overs, with a crucial wickets of opener Ishan Kishan, who gave MI a nice start.
He got the early breakthrough for RCB as he had Kishan caught at third man in the third over. He had bowled a tight first over, giving away just two runs.
He could have had the big wicket of Rohit Sharma inside the powerplay as the MI captain top-edged a pull but a miscommunication between Siraj and Dinesh Karthik led to a collision and the ball fell in between them.
“You look at those first three overs from Siraj. He didn’t give any width, he gave nothing up. He used his bouncer beautifully. He gave us nothing to hit, forced us in to take some shots, and got wickets from it,” Bond said in a post-match presser.
“We were always well behind. We had a long batting order, we tried to up the ante, and we got to 170. So I think for us, we know that if we can get a decent start, we can score all sorts of runs with the power that we have. But that opening spell was brilliant and too good for us today,” he added.
MI’s bowing coach further gave his assessment of the score and said: “I think 170 runs on such a small ground is not great. We left runs out on the park. I think if we went 190-plus we had a chance. Then we just weren’t as accurate with the ball as we needed to be.
IANS