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A thoroughly enjoyable game of cricket at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai went the way of the Pune Warriors as a couple of entertaining rapid fire 30s from Mohnish Mishra (37* from 21 balls) and Robin Uthappa (31 from 13 balls) took the 'home side' to the top of the IPL table at the expense of the Kochi Tuskers Kerala. Batting first Kochi posted an under par 148, though doing well to battle back from being 24/4 after a terrific early burst from Wayne Parnell. Ravindra Jadeja played a mature innings of 47 (33b) and shared in an 88 run partnership with Brad Hodge (39 from 36b) to ensure that Kochi had something to defend.

Despite looking about 15-20 runs short, Kochi made a good fist of it, seemingly very much in the game at the half-way stage of the Pune innings and still in with a shout till the very end when they reduced the Warriors to 118/6 in the 16th over. However, some lusty late hitting by Mohnish Mishra saw Pune come out on top in the battle of the new franchises.

Both teams named unchanged elevens for this big game with Mahela Jayawardene winning the toss and slightly surprisingly opting to bat first.·The Pune Warriors' pace attack made a brilliant start for the second successive game. After reducing Punjab to 9/4 on their IPL debut, the Warriors inflicted a similar start on the Tuskers with South African left-arm pacer Wayne Parnell doing the bulk of the damage by picking up 3 early wickets. Alfonso Thomas though started the slide by removing Brendon McCullum for a golden duck on the first ball of the innings, the Kiwi batsman chasing a wide delivery but only succeeding in edging it to the keeper.

That kicked off the Parnell show with the seamer dismissing superstars of the quality of VVS Laxman (0) and Mahela Jayawardene (2) in a dream first over before coming back later to end Parthiv Patel's brief cameo for 21. Yuvraj Singh perhaps missed a trick by being frugal in his use of Shrikant Wagh, who bowled just 2 overs at the start for 10.

The spinners came on at the end of the powerplay and Ravindra Jadeja, who is suddenly looking every bit a world beater, and Brad Hodge, scored runs at an easy pace. Initially setting their stall up to consolidate, both batsmen took on the bowling as the innings progressed with Jadeja powering 3 balls into the stands and Hodge adding another two. Sadly for Kochi though they lost both batsmen within the space of an over as they slid to 113/6. Raiphi Gomez found the boundary thrice in the end stages to produce a cameo 26 from 18 to help take Kochi to 148/8.

At the end of the Kochi innings, Graeme Smith collided with Rahul Sharma while fielding in the deep, and the South African test skipper came out to open the batting with a runner. Smith and Jesse Ryder made a quick start, scoring 31 before the Kiwi was caught and bowled by Vinay Kumar for 17. Smith showed signs of regaining his long lost form, making a run a ball 24 before finding the fielder in the deep from a hoick off Jadeja in the 8th over. Mithun Manhas failed to find his timing out in the middle and scratched around for 12 before becoming the first of Brad Hodge's two victims in the 10th over. At the half-way stage Pune were 61/3, needing another 88 runs to win from the last 10 overs.

With the prized pair of Yuvraj Singh and Robin Uthappa out in the middle the 11th over bowled by the genius that is Muralitharan went for 10. However, Hodge struck a vital blow in the following over when Yuvraj (8) nicked a short ball to the keeper. Hodge, who had bowling figures of 1.4-0-5-2 gave away 9 runs of the last two deliveries (2*4s and a wide) and was never bowled again in the innings, Mahela Jayawardene perhaps missing a trick too.

Uthappa and Mohnish Mishra came together and raced towards the target with such nonchalance that one wondered if Pune had ever been in trouble at all. Uthappa made 31 from 12 balls before an attempted reverse sweep went awry and Muralitharan disturbed his furniture. Wayne Parnell was run out in the following over for 1 and with Jadeja conceding just 4 runs from it, Kochi were back in the game. Pune crawled to 129/6 and with 13 balls to go in the match needed 20 runs to come from somewhere. Rahul Sharma showed the way, powering Jadeja's final delivery, a juicy full toss into the stands to bring the target down to 14 from 12 and Mishra finished it in the style from the other end, treating Muralitharan with complete disdain, hitting a four and two sixes to take Pune past the finish line.

The win for Pune, their second in the competition takes them to the top of the Indian Premier League, tied on points with the other super starters - Mumbai Indians and Rajsthan Royals. Kochi on the other hand are in similar company at the bottom of the league with the Delhi Daredevils and Deccan Chargers on either side of them. Kochi stay in Mumbai this week and have the unenviable task of taking on the Mumbai Indians on Friday night in an attempt to end their barren run. Pune amazingly have a third consecutive home game in their future as they wait for the Delhi Daredevils to come calling on Sunday.

Teams:

KTK: BB McCullum, VVS Laxman, PA Patel (wk), DPMD Jayawardene (c), BJ Hodge, RA Jadeja, RV Gomez, M Muralitharan, R Vinay Kumar, RP Singh, S Sreesanth

PW: GC Smith, JD Ryder, Y Singh (c), RV Uthappa (wk), M Manhas, MD Mishra, R Sharma, M Kartik, SB Wagh, WD Parnell, AC Thomas

Mini Scorecard:

Kochi Tuskers Kerala 148/8 (20 overs, 7.4rpo)
R Jadeja 47 (33) W Parnell 3-35
B Hodge 39 (36) J Ryder 1-8

Pune Warriors 151/6 (18.5 overs, 8.01rpo)
M Mishra 37* (21) B Hodge 2-14
R Uthappa 31 (13) V Kumar 1-15