Mumbai Indians’ performance in powerplay the deciding factor, says Hashim Amla

Kings XI Punjab opener Hashim Amla believes that Mumbai Indians’ display in the powerplay overs proved to be the crucial factor in their match at the Holkar Stadium in Indore on Thursday.

Jos Buttler and Parthiv Patel provided a solid start to the visitors as they slammed 81 runs in the first six overs - the best powerplay score for Mumbai Indians in IPL history. (IPL 2017 FULL COVERAGE)

At the post-match press conference, Amla said, “Mumbai (Indians) played exceptionally well today and they were able to score a lot of runs in the powerplays which turned out to the crucial factor in the game.”

Hashim Amla also had a great game as he scored his maiden IPL century off just 58 balls, but it was all in vain as Jos Buttler and Nitish Rana guided Mumbai Indians to a 8-wicket victory.

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When asked about his innings, Amla said, “I am really glad to get some runs. It was a good wicket for batting and I am really happy that I could take advantage of the situation. Hopefully, this will be the start of something great and we will be able to get a victory in the next match.”

The Indore pitch has been quite helpful to the bowlers this year, but it was a completely different story on Thursday. The batsmen looked in complete control and the match saw one hundred and two fifties in total. Even Hashim Amla made the same observation in the post-match press conference.

“The wicket today was different from the first two matches. In the previous games, it provided some assistance to the bowlers but today was completely a batter’s day.”

However, he was quick to praise the performance by the Mumbai Indians batsmen.

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“It was a great batting performance by Mumbai Indians today and our bowlers had no answer to their attack. This sort of thing happens and we need to move on from this defeat.”

Thanks to this defeat, Kings XI Punjab have now lost four of their last matches and are currently fifth in the table with just four points. But, Amla believes that it is too soon to rule them out and they still have a realistic chance to reach the IPL 2017 playoffs.

“We will get together after this game and will discuss about our strategy going forward. We need to win almost all of the remaining games and we would like to do that while playing attacking cricket.”

“It’s just halfway through the tournament and I believe everyone has a chance to make the playoffs right now.”, he added with a smile.