Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], April 9 : Following his side's loss to Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in their Indian Premier League (IPL) match, Mumbai Indians head coach Mark Boucher said that pace spearhead Jofra Archer picked up a little niggle and expressed hope that he returns to action soon.
Batter Ajinkya Rahane turned back the clock with an impeccable half-century mixing class and explosiveness, helping Chennai Super Kings (CSK) secure a seven-wicket win over Mumbai Indians (MI) in their Indian Premier League (IPL) match at Wankhede Stadium on Saturday. Archer did not play the match.
"He (Archer) has picked up a little niggle, and we have a fantastic medical team looking after him. He is obviously a massive player for us as well, so hopefully, you know they can pass him fit sometime soon. We will always look after the player, so if he is not ready to put his hand at play, then we will look after him as well. But we are following the medical advice from our team at the moment. So yeah, hopefully, he is up for selection pretty soon," said Boucher in a post-match press conference.
On his side's performance, Boucher said that his side failed to build a stand and there were some "unlucky dismissals" and "some good catches". But he said that his side fought well with the ball.
"We got off to a good start with the bat in the powerplay, and then we just had a batting collapse, I think. A couple of unlucky dismissals, some good catches, and we could not really build on any sort of partnership, which probably cost us about 30-40 runs at the back end. Pretty similar to the first game, just in different phases of the other innings. I thought we fought well to the end with the ball, but yeah, I just do not think that we had enough runs to put any sort of scoreboard pressure on CSK tonight," said the coach.
On the impact player rule, Boucher talked about how it can be interpreted more as a 'substitution' than an 'impact player.
"Well, I think most teams at the moment will probably use it the way that every team has been using it - bat first to try and squeeze in that extra batter or bowl first to get that extra bowler. It is almost like a substitution rather than an impact player. Tonight, we did name it a little bit late. We only called it off to the power play and our second innings, and that is basically because we wanted to make a decision on whether we wanted to use a seam bowler or spinner."
"Was Kumar Kartikeya the right option as the impact player? "I do believe it was the right decision. He bowled, you know, one for 24 in four overs, so he did make an impact in the game, albeit in a losing cause."
"We had five impact players. We discussed halfway that if we bat first, who will be the most effective. And we felt that spin was effective, that it would win the game for us, so I think, as I said, it was right to call just that, but we didn't have enough runs to defend," concluded the coach.
Coming to the match, put to bat first by CSK, MI was off to a good start and was cruising at 61/1 in six overs after the powerplay. But spinners Ravindra Jadeja (3/20), Mitchell Santner (2/28) and pacer Tushar Deshpande (2/31) crushed MI's batting line-up. Except for Ishan Kishan (32) and Tim David (31), MI's exciting, star-studded line-up fell flat. Stars like Rohit (21), Cameron Green (12), Suryakumar Yadav (1) failed to fire.
Hence, MI could only put up 157/8 in their 20 overs.
In chase of 158, after falling of Devon Conway for a duck, Ajinkya Rahane lit up Wankhede Stadium with his 61 off 27 balls, with seven fours and three sixes. Supporting knocks from Ruturaj Gaikwad (40*), Shivam Dube (28) and Ambati Rayadu helped CSK chase the target in 18.1 overs.
Jadeja was given the 'Player of the Match' award for his match-winning spell.
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