For 13 seasons before this one in the Indian Premier League (IPL), no bowler had taken a five-wicket haul against Mumbai Indians (MI). In their first two games of the ongoing 14th season, IPL 2021, there have already been two five-wicket hauls against them.
The best bowling spell against the five-time champions MI was incidentally by their current skipper Rohit Sharma in 2009 at Centurion who was then with the now-defunct Deccan Chargers. Rohit had then taken four wickets for six runs as he ran through the middle and lower order of MI.
In the first two matches of the current season, however, MI have conceded five wickets to Royal Challengers Bangalore's Harshal Patel (5/27) in the tournament opener and to Kolkata Knight Riders' medium pacer Andre Russell (5/15) on Tuesday night.
Patel ran through the MI's power-packed middle and lower order on Friday night as he scalped Ishan Kishan, Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard, Krunal Pandya and Marco Jansen.
On Tuesday, Russell cleaned up the MI tail, needing two overs to pick his five wickets. Russell’s figures are the best against MI in the IPL.
The West Indian Russell got rid of Pollard, Krunal Pandya, Marco Jansen, Rahul Chahar and Jasprit Bumrah.
In both the matches, MI's strong batting line-up was restricted to scores in the 150s -- 159 vs Royal challengers Bangalore and 152 vs Kolkata Knight Riders.
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