Pollock, Jayasuriya put Mumbai in fourth spot

Another blistering knock from Sanath Jayasuriya and a fine bowling spell by Shaun Pollock took Mumbai to its fifth win of the DLF Indian Premier League (IPL).

The Mumbai Indians beat the Kolkata Knight Riders by a comprehensive 8 wickets in a victory that re-wrote many records.

This was Mumbai’s second win against Kolkata. In the first match at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata, the Mumbai side had beaten the home side by 7 wickets.

Playing at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai this time, the host skipper Sachin Tendulkar won the toss and elected to field first.

The Knight Riders’ innings started off slowly and the Sourav Ganguly-led team never looked in control of proceedings from the word go. They were restricted by some brilliant bowling by the Mumbai franchise backed by some excellent ground fielding. Wickets kept falling by the wayside and before the visitors could reach the fifth over they had already lost three wickets.

Tendulkar made a brilliant captaincy move by sticking to his main strike bowlers and that always kept Kolkata on the back foot. Former South African pace ace Pollock bowled all his four overs consecutively and ended up with 3 wickets for a miserly 12 runs.

Kolkata reached its fifty in the twelfth over of the innings, and that was the slowest fifty in the tournament so far. The big names all failed to fire and only Salman Butt, Sourav Ganguly and Ajit Agarkar managed scores in double figures with the highest being 15 runs scored by the latter two batsmen.

Kolkata registered the lowest total of the IPL by getting bowled out for 67 in the sixteenth over of their innings showing no resistance whatsoever to the spot-on Mumbai bowling.

Dwayne Bravo, Rajesh Raje and Dominic Thornely bowled well by picking up 2 wickets apiece while skipper Tendulkar took four catches, the highest by any player in a single IPL innings.

With just seven boundaries and one six being scored in the entire Kolkata innings, the crowd was denied seeing the action it paid to watch. The Kolkata batsmen never once looked to put on a formidable partnership and threaten the Mumbai Indians.

The Mumbai bowlers on the other hand bowled according to plan and had the Kolkata batsmen under pressure from the first ball of the innings. They did a fantastic job by maintaining that pressure right through to the end.

Chasing a paltry 68 to win, the home crowd expected its local hero Sachin Tendulkar to provide them the entertainment they were eagerly looking ahead to.

The much-awaited ‘Sachin-Shoaib’ battle was witnessed in the first over itself. Akhtar bowled with good pace and almost had a wicket off his first delivery. The ‘Rawalpindi Express’ was rewarded when Tendulkar nicked a ball to the keeper in his third delivery itself. Much to the disappointment of the home crowd, the Mumbai Indians captain was taking the long walk back to the pavilion without opening his account and Akhtar had had the last laugh.

But Sri Lankan stalwart Sanath Jayasuriya seems to be enjoying the Wankhede atmosphere more than the home boy. Coming at the back of his undefeated 114 against Chennai at the same venue two days ago, the shouts of “Suriya” by the Mumbai crowd only seemed to boost the Lankan’s resolve. Jayasuriya was in sublime form and he made sure Akhtar didn’t have any further luck hitting him for 29 runs in his two overs.

He seemed in a hurry to finish the match and managed to do so with the help of six fours and two towering sixes. He was unbeaten on 48 off just 17 deliveries when he guided Mumbai to another single-handed victory.

The Matara Marauder who only two games ago, was struggling to score runs in excess of 20, is now the batsman to have scored the most sixes in the tournament. His tally of 18 sixes in the tournament overtakes David Hussey’s 17.

Robin Uthappa’s wicket was the only other consolation for Kolkata Knight Riders as the hosts achieved the target in less than six overs, making it the fastest target to be overcome in the IPL.

Going into this match, both sides had an even line-up and the choc-a-block Wankhede Stadium gathered to witness a good duel between two teams in the IPL fighting for a shot at the semi-finals. With the bowling and batting efforts by veterans Pollock and Jayasuriya and the 4 catches taken by Tendulkar, Mumbai now jumps two places to sit at the fourth place on the IPL points table.

This just goes to prove that age is not a factor in the Twenty20 version of the sport. Shaun Pollock was adjudicated the Player of the Match for his brilliant bowling spell upfront which put the initial brakes on the Kolkata batting, from which they never seemed to recover.

The next match of the IPL will be played at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium at Jaipur between the table-toppers Rajasthan Royals and the bottom-placed Bangalore Royal Challengers on May 17.