An enthralling display of batting by Mumbai Indians’ middle order batsmen Kieron Pollard and Jos Buttler cruised Mumbai to a six-wicket victory over Royal Challengers Bangalore on Wednesday at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in the 41st match of ongoing Indian Premier League.
Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma won the toss and opted to bowl first. The Royal Challengers innings started off poorly as the top batsmen of the team misfired.
Skipper Virat Kohli did not live up to his image and was sent back when he was playing at 8. Chris Gayle made 4 runs, Shane Watson scored 15 and Abraham De Villiers made 24. The fast dismissal of wickets made Royal Challengers lost their momentum.
After first five overs, RCB managed to make only 25 runs with the loss of two wickets. Virat and gayle misfired and was sent back. De Villiers looked promising when he started but was only able to make a low score of 24 runs off 27 balls and dismissed by Pandya in the 11th over of the game.
K. L. Rahul was paying on one end patiently, Shane Watson came and tried to revive the team but he was sent back in a run out by Rohit Sharma.
Rahul saved the day for Bangalore as he smashed unbeaten 68 runs off 53 balls. He managed to put a decent total for the team. His innings included four sixes and three fours.
After Watson, Sachin Baby joined Rahul and lived up to the name of master, as he hit a valuable 25 runs off 13 balls for Bangalore. RCB suffered 51 dot balls in the innings and the team could manage to make a total of 151 runs with the loss of 4 wickets.
Chasing a target of 151 runs Captain Rohit Sharma and Parthiv Patel set foot on the ground and with only one run Parthiv was dismissed in the second over of the game.
Ambati Rayudu came and built a partnership of 58 runs with Sharma. Sharma scored 25 runs off 24 balls but was dismissed in the 10th over of the game. The partnership of Rayudu and Sharma reduced the required run rate for the team and Rayudu’s innings laid the foundation for the victory of Mumbai. He smashed 44 runs off 47 balls.
After Sharma was dismissed Nitish Rana came but he too was dismissed in the 13th over of the game. Pollard came and he made it clear that he is going to play for Mumbai’s victory.
But soon Rayudu was dismissed in the 16th over. Now it was Pollard and Buttler and the duo assured the victory as they were producing regular boundaries.
Pollard smashed much needed 35 runs off 19 balls which were well supported by Buttler’s score of 29 runs off 11 balls. They constructed a 55 runs partnership in 21 balls and led Mumbai to a miraculous victory.
Buttler finished the match with a smashing six off Aaron in the 19th over.
Mumbai’s latest win led them to grab the fourth spot in the points table with 12 points. RCB is at the 6th spot with eight points.
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12 May, 2016
Avni S. Singh