The Indian Premier League is famous for its 4s and 6s had started on 9th April 2021 with some changed rules. The new rules were:
- A team had to finish the inning within 90 minutes.
- The third empire was going to check the short run.
- The third empire had the authority to change the decision of no-ball.
- No soft signals from ground empires were allowed.
In the MA Chidambaram Stadium of Chennai, Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore faced each other in the first T20 match of the IPL 2021 session. The defending champion Mumbai had never been able to win their first match of the series since 2013. Despite that, the team had lifted the IPL trophy 5 times. In 2013, Bangalore defeated the Mumbai Indians in the first match of the series and since then it has continued. The pitch of Chennai had always helped spinners mostly and had been tough for batting. An interesting point to note before that match i.e, RCB had lost their last 5 matches and MI won all the last 5 matches.
In the past history of IPL, both teams had faced each other in 27 IPL matches in which Mumbai won 17 and Bangalore 10 matches. The winning rate of RCB against MI had been 37.04. Maxwell, Jamieson, Christian got back in the RCB squad after a long duration and Rajat Patidar made his debut for Bangalore. For MI, Marco Jensen and Chris Lynn were included in the playing XI. RCB captain Virat Kohli won the toss and decided to have the bowl in hand first. Rohit also wanted to do the same if could have won the toss.
Rohit and Chris Lynn were out to the middle to open and Siraj got the new ball in hand to open the attack. The MI got a slow start and scored 12 runs after 3 overs, then leg spinner Yuzvendra Chahal brought into the attack in the 4th over. Unfortunately, Rohit Sharma was run out due to some mix-up and had to go back. RCB got a big breakthrough before the end of the Powerplay. After the dismissal, Suryakumar Yadav came out to join Lynn. After the end of the first Powerplay, Mumbai had scored 41 runs for 1 wicket. Both the batsmen were playing nicely and had made 83 runs in 9 overs. Then Kohli had to call back Yuzvendra Chahal, who had already been very expensive in his last 2 overs, in the search of a wicket. Kyle Jamieson got the ball again in the 10th over, he did the job and broke the partnership. Suryakumar Yadav was caught behind by AB de Villiers at 31 from 23 balls. After the loss of Yadav, Chris Lynn could not also stay longer and missed his fifty by one run, he was caught and bowled by Washington Sundar. Afterward, Mumbai Indians could not stand back because Harshal Patel demolished their middle order and lower order completely and took 5 important wickets of Mumbai. Harshal Patel brought Bangalore back into the game by taking 3 wickets in a single over. Finally, Mumbai set a target of 160 runs for Bangalore to win the 1st T20 of the Indian Premier League 2021.
Washington Sundar and Virat Kohli came out to the middle to chase the target and Trent Boult got the new ball in hand. RCB got a decent start with almost 9 runs per over but lost Washington Sundar in 4.2 overs. Rajat Patidar came to join the captain after the dismissal of Sundar but could not support much and was sent back by Boult. After the first Powerplay, RCB had scored 46 runs but lost 2 wickets. Maxwell and Kohli tried to handle the conditions but Kohli was dismissed by Bumrah in 12.3 overs and then Maxwell also sent back by Marco Jansen in 14.1 overs. AB de Villiers was there on the crease and fighting but he was unfortunately run out by Pandya/Ishan Kishan at 158 runs. But anyhow RCB managed to achieve the target and won 1st T20 of IPL 2021 session by 2 wickets and got the 2 points. Mumbai continued its history of not winning the first match of the series since 2013.
RCB got a nice start with the victory over the defending champion and Harshal Patel, with 5 wickets, was the Man of the Match in the opening match of IPL 2021, a very big achievement for the youngster.