IPL 2018: Ben Cutting Blames Batting Failure After Loss To Rajasthan Royals
Credits: BCCI/IPL

Ben Cutting, on Sunday (May 13), blamed the batsmen’s inconsistency after Mumbai Indians suffered a 7-wicket loss at the hands of Rajasthan Royals.  The defeat has all but ended the defending champions’ hopes of making it to the playoffs.

Asked to bat first, the hosts were off to a brilliant start in the do-or-die game.

In-form Suryakumar Yadav and Lewis added 87 runs for the first. However, the game turned on its head once Suryakumar was sent back by Jofra Archer. On the very next delivery, Archer accounted for Rohit Sharma for a duck to peg Mumbai back.

A little later, Lewis departed too, falling to local boy Dhawal Kulkarni. The southpaw scored 60 off 42 balls with the help of four fours and as many sixes.  From thereon, Mumbai kept on losing wickets at regular intervals. They managed to put up a challenging total thanks to Hardik Pandya’s 36-run knock.

IPL 2018: Ben Cutting Blames Batting Failure After Loss To Rajasthan Royals
Lewis scored 60 (Credits: BCCI)

In reply, the Royals reached home with two overs remaining. Jos Buttler once again starred with the bat, scoring an unbeaten 94 to compile his fifth consecutive fifty this season.

Speaking after the loss, Cutting admitted that bowling to Buttler was tough before blaming the batsmen for not finishing things strongly.

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“It’s tough. We were pretty close to our plans tonight. (He) missed a few balls with execution here and there but that happens in Twenty20 cricket. He’s in red hot form and he’s scored over 500 runs. But his confidence is high; he’s striking the ball well,” Cutting told the media.

“I’m not going to put it down to their bowling. It’s probably back to our batting. A few times this time we’ve fallen in a heap and sort of lost quick three or four wickets in three overs for not many runs. So when you lose 2 for 20, 3 for 30, it’s tough to build up and fire again regardless of the bowling,” he added.

IPL 2018: Ben Cutting Blames Batting Failure After Loss To Rajasthan Royals
Buttler scored an unbeaten 94 (Credits: BCCI)

He further rued the narrow losses Mumbai suffered in the initial stages of the tournament.

“If you go back to our first 3-4 games of the season that we lost in the last over, had we won two of those four games we wouldn’t be having the same conversation. We’d be sitting comfortably on 14-16 points,” he said.

 

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