Mumbai Indians won the toss and elected to field on Tuesday at the Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai. Bopara and Marsh opened the innings for KXIP but Bopara was packed quickly and sent to pavilion when he had made just 1 run lbw b Zaheer Khan. Thereafter, at one stage it appeared as if it was a match between Shaun Marsh and Mumbai. Lasith Malinga starred with the ball and Shikhar Dhawan shone with the bat as Mumbai Indians beat Kings XI Punjab by four wickets.
Marsh was the only batsman in Kings XI Punjab who withstood the bowling attack and contributed valuable 57 runs for his team. Mumbai Indians fielding was also lethargic and they also had a make-shift keeper in Nayudu, but they still managed to curtail the flow of runs and restricted KGIP to 163. The transformation came in the strategic time break.
There was a stage in the match when K XI Punjab was set to make a big score but Malinga’s superb bowling of 4 wickets for 22, Zaheer Khan 3 for 34 and Bravo 1 for 22 sealed their fate. They had scored 100 runs in 12.3 overs. They set a target of 164 for the Mumbai Indians to win the match.
Lasith Malinga bowled superbly to claim three wickets from four balls that included a perfect yorker to knock out Shaun Marsh, the only batsman who offered some resistance, as Mumbai Indians restricted Kings XI Punjab to 163.
Irfan Pathan was just about to go for his big hits, but Harbhajan took a very good catch to get rid of him. Marsh was bowled by a yorker from Malinga. They were looking good to set a huge score, but lost the wicket of Jayawardena and Yuvraj Singh in quick succession. Irfan Pathan tried to improve the scoring rate a bit, but he soon perished to the bowling of Malinga. A good knock of 22 off 13 balls down the order from Piyush Chawla helped them reach a respectable score of 163.
Sachin Tendulkar and Shikhar Dhawan opened the innings for Mumbai Indians. Sachin was unlucky as he hit a lofted shot over the bowlers head but misdirected it towards long on boundry and was caught by Pathan off the bowling of Chawla for 11 runs. It was a lapse of concentration on his part and the shot was mistimed.
Pollard was caught by Bopara off the bowling of Pathan. S Tiwary came to the crease at the fall of Pollard’s wicket. Shikhar Dhawan then lost his wicket c Marsh b Bopara for 50 runs. Mumbai Indians got their 100 runs at 12.5 overs. Mumbai Indians were now dependent on Rayudu and S.Tewary to make quick runs, but Rayudu was out caught Yuvraj off the bowling of Srivastava for 9 runs.
Set a target of 164, Mumbai lost the way on various occasions but found enough important scores to win the game with three balls to spare. Mumbai needed 19 from the final two overs but R Sathish produced two hits to the boundary off Ravi Bopara, and Saurabh Tiwary thrashed a straight boundary to leave them the requirement of six off the final over. Sathish held his nerve to collect a couple of driven twos and Brett Lee fired a wide down the leg side to allow Mumbai to win by four wickets.
For the Kings XI Punjab Srivastava, Pathan and Chawla bagged one wicket each and Bopara bagged 3 wickets for 31 runs.
Mumbai Indians won the match of a run earned on a wide ball and the stadium went into raptures. They are on top of the table with six wins out of seven matches.
The award for maximum sixes went to S.Tewary.
The award for the Karbonn Kamaal Catch went to Harbhajan Singh.
The Man of the Match award was given to Lasith Malinga.
Ravi Matah.