Mumbai Continues Winning Streak

Posted by Rajnikant in IPL on 04 18th, 2010 | no responses

60181460 Mumbai won second encounter of league stage against Banglore and settled their score against Bangalore in this IPL season. One minor blast took place outside Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore just before match. This delayed match by 45 minutes. Finally around 4.45 pm Anil Kumable won the toss and asked Mumbai openers to put their batting pads on.

Sachin opened the inning with new partner again, this time with McLaren. This is the fourth time Sachin opened inning with new partner in this IPL. It was quiet start by these two putting up 34 runs in 6 overs before Sachin got out. In his 19 runs inning Sachin hit 3 beautiful boundaries. It was seen in past 3-4 games, Mumbai bating line-up do not perform well if Sachin gets out in early overs. But this time young Rayudu was in different mood. He not only built partnership of 69 runs with McLaren but also accelerated the much needed run rate. He scored 46 runs in just 27 balls with 4 huge sixes and 3 boundaries.

Bangalore’s catching was dismal. They dropped McLaren 3 times, luckily McLaren did not damage that seriously and he was finding it difficult to make good contact with ball. But the contribution of 40 runs by McLaren could not be side lined. Raydu had set good foundation for Mumbai to reach to a competitive total, it was just a question how well Pollard, Nayar, tiwary can fire in death overs?

Useful Knock BY Rayudu

Fire Works BY Duminy

It was 15th over, Pollard sent Pankaj singh out of park 3 times with consecutive 3 sixes; after that over Mumbai’s run rate pumped from 8.2 to 9.2 runs per over. Pollard scored 20 runs in just 7 balls. Mumbai were 142/4 in 17th over and Duminy-Nayar pair was new at crease. From there onwards Duminy carried the Mumbai score to 191 runs single handedly by scoring 42 runs in 19 balls with 3 boundaries and 3 sixes. Mumbai scored 50 runs in their last 4 overs. It was good to see Mumbai scoring huge total without much of contribution from Sachin.

It was Bangalore’s opener’s responsibility to give good and explosive start to chase down 191 runs against strong Mumbai attack. Fernando sent young Manish Pande in dug out in 5th over when he was just trying to accelerate the score. The man in hunt for orange cap Kalis, also did not survive long. McLaren thrashed his stump when he was playing on 14. Peterson and Dravid put 27 runs together in next 3 overs. Harbhajan turned Dravid into spectator in 9th over.

Bangalore’s big hitting Uthappa was on crease in 10th over with difficult job of scoring 11 runs per over to score 192 runs. KP and Uthappa got out in consecutive overs leaving job of scoring 14 runs per over in next 8 overs for their team-mates. It was just a matter of time, for Mumbai to seal their victory. Kohali hit some good shots and scored 37 runs. Royal Challengers managed to gather 134 runs on the fall of 9 wickets in 20 overs, failing short by 57 runs. Mumbai bowlers showed discipline in their attack, not a single bowler was hit for more than 8 runs per over.

Pollard took 3 wickets and McLaren was the most economical giving only 5.25 runs per over. McLaren was the Man of the Match for his allround show. Duminey, McLaren, Raydu and Pollard were the heroes of the match.

Royal Challenger has 14 points and net run rate of +0.219. They look certain in semis, but Cricket is funny game and miracles can happen in cricket. Great contest, we will have to wait for last delivery to get last 3 teams qualified for semis.

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