Harshal Patel hat-trick caps comprehensive Royal Challengers Bangalore win
Glenn Maxwell, Yuzvendra Chahal and Virat Kohli also fire for RCB; flat Mumbai Indians fall to seventh on points table
Dropped on zero by Rahul Chahar at deep square leg, Kohli looked in ominous touch upfront despite the early loss of Devdutt Padikkal. He kept finding boundaries off the pacers, some streaky, others imperious. Jasprit Bumrah was among those who bore the brunt, at one stage being deposited for six towards the short square-leg boundary that made Kohli the first Indian - and just the fifth overall, after Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard, Shoaib Malik and David Warner - to get to 10,000 T20 runs. The shot of the evening, however, was Kohli's shovelled-six over long-on off Adam Milne's fourth-stump half-volley. After five overs, Royal Challengers were well placed at 44 for 1.
KS Bharat is the latest experiment in what has been a bit of a roulette at No. 3 for RCB, with Rajat Patidar and Shahbaz Ahmed previously tried and benched. After a forgettable first outing, he shredded pressure with some delightfully executed slog sweeps, dispatching Chahar twice over deep square leg. Bharat fell soon after the second of those hits, lofting to wide long-off for a 24-ball 32, with Chahar giving him a bit of a send-off.
Maxwell walked in and didn't let the surface or the lack of pace dictate his thought processes, instead trusting his own game - he had the belief to execute his switch-hits against the spinners, twice peppering the shorter boundary. Before that, Hardik Pandya had let off Kohli on 37, dropping him at point, and then Mumbai burnt a review on Maxwell. It told you of their desperation. Kohli would bring up his fifty off 40 balls - his scoring rate slowed significantly in the second half of his innings - before falling two balls later.
Mohammed Siraj breathed fire, touching 147.4kph and swinging it late, in a tight over upfront, but a Kyle Jamieson no-ball proved the signal to change momentum for Mumbai. Rohit Sharma ticked off three successive boundaries in that 17-run over from Jamieson. Royal Challengers could've had a wicket in the fourth over, had Siraj managed to effect a direct hit at the bowler's end to find de Kock short of his ground going for a quick single. de Kock took advantage of that life immediately, dispatching Dan Christian for successive boundaries as Mumbai raced to 51 for 0 in five overs.
Four balls is all it took for Chahal to leave his stamp on the game as he foxed de Kock in flight and had him hole out to the longer boundary at deep midwicket in the seventh over. With Christian looking off colour, Kohli brought on Maxwell, possibly to complete that four-over quota, and the move worked, as he dismissed Rohit in his second over.
On the same surfaces in IPL 2020, Suryakumar Yadav, Mumbai's designated No. 3, and was in the form of his life. A year on, he's searching for form and, seemingly, confidence. The shot he played to get out suggested this, as he reached out to a full and wide off-cutter, one that he may have otherwise left, to slice a catch to short third man. At 97 for 5 in 14.1 overs, the chase was cracking.
Shashank Kishore is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo