Former West Indies legend Brian Lara has felt that Mumbai Indians captain Kieron Pollard failed to do well as the skipper and allowed Chennai Super Kings to win the match. He has also pointed out that keeping Jasprit Bumrah’s three overs for the death has cost the Mumbai Indians the game against CSK.
Chennai Super Kings were 24/4 at the end of the powerplay. Later, the opener Ruturaj Gaikwad had played a stunning knock and guided his side to a good total of 156 runs at the end of the 20 overs. Brian Lara, however, felt that the Chennai Super Kings would have been dismissed early if the Mumbai Indians had got their tactics right as well.
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“They should have been done and dusted by the Mumbai Indians. There are a few things that Kieron Pollard did out there that I felt he didn’t really press gas at the right time and sort of just came off the pedal and allowed the Chennai Super Kings to get back into the match (…) But I felt that you make it easy, you can’t have Bumrah just bowling one over at that stage,” Brian Lara said while speaking to cricket.com.
“I can’t blame the Mumbai bowlers, but I just felt that they could have done a little bit better tactically. I think it’s more tactical. You’ve got two spinners that you most likely will have to use at some point in time. I wouldn’t necessarily say the bowlers were bad. I felt if they had used them properly, no way 156 was on the card for Chennai Super Kings,” he further added.
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Brian Lara expressed that if quality batters are there at the death and they are set, it will be difficult to restrict the scoring even if you have the best of the bowlers in your team. He applauded the Chennai Super Kings batters for using the opportunity against the spinners quite well.
“I think it was given to them at certain stages and they capitalized and took the spinners to pieces. Then he realized, whoever comes back at the death, if the batsmen are well set, they are going to go. Even Bravo, who wasn’t well set, took apart Trent Boult. It was just mayhem later on,” Brian Lara concluded.
