After a slow start, Mumbai Indians opener Ryan Rickelton is slowly getting into his groove. On Thursday, he struck a fluent half-century, his second successive in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 and third overall for the season, and contributed to a near-perfect performance by Mumbai Indians and bagged the Player of the Match award.
Rickelton's outstanding innings of 61 off 38 balls laced with seven fours and three sixes and his 116-run opening partnership with Rohit Sharma, who also scored his third half-century (53 off 36 balls), helped Mumbai Indians beat Rajasthan Royals by 100 runs in the Match 50 at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur on Thursday. The win propelled the five-time IPL winner Mumbai Indians to the top of the points table with 14 points, the same as Royal Challengers Bengaluru but a better net run rate.
Awesome. Really good week. It was a bit of a slow start. We're clicking nicely as a partnership together. I was guilty in the first quarter of the tournament in trying to do too much. We have such a think tank, senior players, and management group,
Mumbai Indians rode on the brilliant start provided by Rickelton and Rohit and an unbeaten 94-run partnership between Suryakuamr Yadav and Hardik Pandya, both of whom hammered identical scores of 48 not out off 23 balls to post a massive 217/2 in 20 overs.
Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya was elated with the way the top-order batted.
"The way we batted, and we were clinical with the ball - so absolutely. We could have got another 15 runs. What we were trying to say to each other was to play percentage shots. Surya and I said there's value for shots. Ro (Rohit) and Ryan (Rickelton) batted the same way. I think it was absolutely fantastic. It is never about people getting chances; it's about what is required in the situation. People are going back to batsmanship. As a group, the way we batted was proper batsmanship," said Pandya.
Mumbai Indians then defended the target easily, not allowing the Rajasthan Royals batters to settle down and get into a rhythm.
Experienced pacer Trent Boult claimed 3-28 while spinner Karn Sharma, who came in as an Impact Substitute in place of Rohit Sharma, bagged 3-23 and Jasprit Bumrah finished with 2-15 in four brilliant overs as Mumbai Indians bundled out Rajasthan Royals for 117 for a 100-run win.
Teenage batting sensation Vaibhav Suryavanshi, who had blazed to the fastest century by an Indian in the previous match, was the first to go for a two-ball zero, falling to an attempted yorker by Deepak Chahar that landed wide and caught the 14-year-old in no position to execute his shot.
That wicket off the fourth ball of the first over started a procession and half of the Rajasthan Royals' side was back in the dugout before the completion of the fifth over with only 47 runs on the board.
That wicket off the fourth ball of the first over started a procession and half of the Rajasthan Royals' side was back in the dugout before the completion of the fifth over with only 47 runs on the board.
You've got to give credit to MI for the way they batted. They kept wickets. Yeah, 190-200 would have been ideal. We've been getting good starts. But it's up to the middle order - myself, Dhruv - to step up. We've done a lot of things right and wrong. A lot of mistakes and small errors. We want to focus on them, and focus on the good [stuff] as well.
