Substituting Vignesh Puthur in the 16th over might back have backfired for Mumbai Indians, felt Virat Kohli after Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) posted 221/5 in 20 overs during their IPL 2025 match at the Wankhede Stadium on Monday.
After losing Phil Salt on the second ball of the innings, Virat Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal resurrected the RCB innings with a 91-run stand off just 52 balls for the second wicket. However, it was Vignesh Puthur who broke the stand with the wicket of Devdutt Padikkal.
Interestingly, the Kerala spinner, conceded 10 runs in that over and never got another chance to roll his fingers. The other four RCB wickets were shared by Trent Boult and Hardik Pandya.
While Vignesh Puthur conceded 10 runs in his over, other spinners Will Jacks and Mitchell Santner also had an economy of 10. Only Jasprit Bumrah (7.20) had a better economy above everyone in the match.
For the record, the Mumbai Indians spinners conceded five fours and three sixes out of 18 and 13 respectively. With Vignesh Puthur going out in the 15th over, Hardik Pandya kept faith on his pacer in the last five overs, something that helped RCB, according to Virat Kohli.
“One of their spinners was out of the game. It was difficult for the chinaman to bowl. That gave us 20-25 runs,” said Virat Kohli, who contributed with 67 off 42 balls.
“What happened with wickets not falling was one of their spinners was out of the game and that played out to be an important factor for us because we knew once the spinner is out of the game, then the fast bowler with shorter boundaries will find it tough,” added the RCB batter.
Virat Kohli reaches huge milestone
Earlier, Virat Kohli became the first Indian to complete 13,000 runs in T20 cricket. He reached the landmark with his second half-century in this IPL season to become only the fifth batter overall to have scored 13,000 runs in the shortest format of the game.
Chris Gayle leads the list of highest run-scorers in T20 cricket with 14,562 in 463 matches, followed by Alex Hales at the second spot with 13,610 runs, Shoaib Malik at third with 13,557 runs in 555 matches and Kieron Pollard at the fourth position with 13,537 runs in 695 matches.
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