Change in Captaincy, Change in Result!!!
Home > News Shots > Sports newsSteve Smith's captaning the Rajasthan Royals for the first time this season after Rahane getting sacked won the toss and elected to field first.
Rohit Sharma fell early, but Quinton De Kock and Suryakumar Yadav added on 97 runs to steady the ship. Quinton De Kock continued his good run in this year's IPL getting 65 from 47 balls. It was a tough pitch as the batsman could not really get going. Hardik Pandya came out at number 4 to accelerate but even he found it difficult to strike the ball on that pitch. They did get a bit lucky as Jofra Archer dropped 3 catches. With little cameos from Pollard and Cutting along with Hardik Pandya's 23, the Mumbai Indians got to 161 in the 20 overs. Shreyas Gopal was once again the pick of the bowlers picking up 2 wickets for 22 runs.
The Rajasthan Royals started off with a blaze with Samson getting a quick 35 from 19 balls in spite of losing Rahane early. After having a quick start, Captain Smith played a sensible innings as he didn't take too many risks. Stokes came in and got out but young Riyan Parag was impressive as he kept up with the scoring rate and got 43 off just 29 balls taking all the pressure off Steve Smith who cruised to an unbeaten 57 from 46 balls to take the team to an easy victory against the Mumbai Indians.
The Rajasthan Royals will be happy to get a win on the board and will hope that this change in captaincy will turn their season around. Rahul Chahar for the Mumbai Indians did really well picking up 3 wickets but they didn't have enough runs on the board. The other spinners could have bowled better as Krunal Pandya and Markande bowled 4 overs together for 48 runs.