Krish Bhagat, all of 21 years of age, was playing just his second IPL match on Thursday for Mumbai Indians (MI). On debut three days earlier, he had bowled overs four and six, conceding ten runs overall to Shubman Gill, Washington Sundar and Glenn Phillips. He didn’t bowl in the powerplay at all against Chennai Super Kings (CSK), and was instead given the 16th and the 20th and conceded 31 runs. Faith in the young man? Or expecting too much in what Ambati Rayudu called “two of the hardest overs” in a T20 innings?

“As a batting unit, your 16th over is like when you start going for it [entering the death overs], and then your 20th, obviously, you’re throwing everything at it,” Rayudu said on ESPNcricinfo’s TimeOut show after CSK’s 103-run win. “As a young boy, that’s two very, very tough overs.”

Mitchell McClenaghan, the former MI bowler, agreed: “One of the keys, I guess, over the last few years in IPL cricket, in T20 cricket, is that in the first innings, you want your best bowler to bowl the 20th over. And then in the last innings, you want them to bowl the 19th. Reasons being momentum going into a break can actually flow on into the next innings.

“Don’t ask me why. It’s just something that happens in the changing room. You know, you come in deflated if you’ve got an over that’s gone for 15-plus. And in the back end, obviously, you want to try and get a wicket before that last over. So it was interesting [that Bhagat bowled the last over].”

McClenaghan did like some things MI did in their bowling powerplay – even though CSK ended the phase at 73 for 2 and Mahela Jayawardene, the MI coach, later said “we lost both the powerplays“.

“We saw [AM] Ghazanfar was impressive in the powerplay [six runs in one over]. He was a good match-up [against Sanju Samson]. Or even Mitch Santner to bowl the second over [1 for 9],” McClenaghan said. “And then also, once you’ve taken a wicket in those first couple of overs, bringing [Jasprit] Bumrah back again, when you know the middle to lower order of CSK is short [of runs], to try and get one more wicket in the powerplay with Bumrah attacking would have been a good option as well [Bumrah gave 19 runs in two powerplay overs].