Dwayne Bravo led the Mumbai Indians in the absence of Sachin Tendulkar and after winning the toss at the Eden Gardens Kolkatta chose to bat on Monday. Mumbai batting first meant that Kolkatta cannot defeat Mumbai by a huge margin today as they will only have to chase the assigned target.
As Mumbai made a mess of their batting in Sachin’s absence, they gave a target of only 134 to Kolkatta to win. It was a slow pitch in the Eden Gardens and Mumbai could only muster 133 runs for the loss of eight wickets. It was the grit and determination of Saurabh Tewary and Ambati Rayudu who brought Mumbai’s total to some element of respectability, if it can be called so.
Saurabh Tewary made 46 runs off 37 balls and puctuated them with 4 fours and one six. Ambavati Rayudu made 27 runs of 15 balls and hit 3 fours and a a six. It appeared that Mumbai had fielded a ‘B’ grade team in this inconsequential match today.
Shikhar Dhawan and Tare got out in cheaply and the score read a pathetic 14 for 2. At the 10 over mark the score read 69 for 2.
J.P.Duminy scored two boundaries for his 19 runs and was out bowled Unadakt. Sathish could contribute only 11 runs and Bravo could not give a leaders knock.Rayudu’s 15 balls 27 runs comprised of3 fours and a six.
For Kolkatta, Shane Bond bowled exceptionally well and took 2 wickets for 24 runs. Kartick also got 2 wickets for 20 runs.
In reply thereto, Kolkatta began their run pursuit with Saurav Ganguly and McCullum. Both batted with aggression with a view to finish the task as quickly as possible.
Ganguly scored a six off Murtaza in the fourth over and in the fifth over he hit Dilhara Fernando for a boundry and a six. He hit Duminy also for two boundaries. Ganguly was out in the 14th over caught Bravo bowled Sathish for 42 runs which comprised of 4 fours and two sixes.
McCullum got his highest score in the IPL when he scored 57 not out with the help of 8 boundaries.
Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan and Kieron Pollard were rested for this match.
Kartik was awarded the Man of the match award.
Ravi Matah.