There were many things that took MI to their first victory of IPL 2016—the amazing last over from Bumrah, the captain’s knock, the unexpected cameo by Mitchell McClenaghan and the Hitman’s brilliant partnership with Buttler. But Manish Pandey’s 52 off 29 balls stood out along with Gautam Gambhir’s knock in KKR’s impressive batting display.

Pandey felt that KKR were short by 15-20 runs that could’ve made a difference given the way MI played. “Batting first, you don’t know how much you need, on any given day if you score 180+, you think you’re going to win. But batting in Kolkata, you think there is an advantage to the team batting 2nd as the pitch eases down and teams capitalise and MI capitalised. Batting 2nd it becomes easier because you know the target you have to chase.”
He was confident that KKR had posted a good score on the board and that scoring 184 makes any chase a tough task for the opposition. “180 on any pitch would be a good score and we have a good bowling attack. Good spin and good pace attack.”

Manish revealed that his team was looking at a score of 200+ but things didn’t go their way in the last 3 overs when Colin Munro & Yusuf Pathan were batting, thanks to Bumrah and Co. “In the middle overs we were thinking about 200 but when I got out & Russell had a decent partnership with the captain, there came a stage where we had two new batsmen at the crease. It’s not easy for any team to have that situation. That’s where we lacked a little bit. We had to just go for it. Someone should have stayed till the end. That would’ve been the ideal thing to do.”
The KKR batsman looked confident while batting and he revealed that the advice from the coaching staff is probably what helped him change. “What I realised in the months before the IPL is that I can score more runs by staying longer in the middle. That’s what Jacques [Kallis] was telling me to get to know the wicket a little more.” This is what made the difference for Mumbai as well! The batsmen stayed longer at the crease, built partnerships & took the chase away from KKR.