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Mumbai Indians finally put an end to the misery of the Pune Warriors by dishing out a 7th consecutive defeat to their Maharastran neighbours at the highly partisan Navi Mumbai stadium on Wednesday night. Batting first, Mumbai posted a competitive 160 runs on the board with their top scorer being the unexpected former Deccan lad T Suman, who made a quick-fire 36 to turn an ordinary score into something considerably more challenging. Pune lost their way early in the chase and eventually ended up 21 runs shy despite a battling half-century from young Manish Pandey. As always, Lasith Malinga was lethal with the ball, picking up 3 more wickets today to take his tally to 22 for the season, almost double that of his nearest rival.

Table-toppers Mumbai Indians welcomed basement dwellers the Pune Warriors to the DY Patil Stadium, which has been a home for the Warriors this season. Yuvraj Singh won the toss for Pune as Sachin Tendulkar lost his 7^th in a row. The Pune skipper invited his counterpart to make first use of the pitch and then answered the most awaited question as to whether Sourav Ganguly would get a game today, but Dada's fans would have to wait a bit longer as the Bengal Tiger was not included in the starting eleven. The Pune Warriors did strengthen their batting as Graeme Smith returned to the side replacing Nathan McCullum. Left arm pacer Srikanth Wagh was also back in the side and Abhishek Jhunjhunwala too got a rare start as Pune. The Mumbai Indians made just one change bringing in Aiden Blizzard for the injured Davy Jacobs.

A new partner, Aiden Blizzard, accompanied Tendulkar as Mumbai continued their search for the ideal opening combination. Tendulkar opened his account with a boundary as he caressed the ball through extra cover. Srikanth Wagh bowled an action packed over which included huge appeals and boundaries. Blizzard couldn’t make the most of the opportunity as he departed after making just 6, caught behind off Alfonso Thomas. Tendulkar and Mumbai's ever reliable no.3 Ambati Rayadu made full use of the fielding restrictions as they raced to 49 by the end of the powerplay.

After not really bowling much in the IPL thus far, Yuvraj Singh decided to bring himself into the attack and continued from where he left off in the World Cup. Yuvi and Rahul Sharma applied the brakes on Mumbai’s run rate and struck gold when Tendulkar fell to Yuvraj for 24 (24b). The Warriors' skipper struck again as he got rid of Rayadu as well two overs later for 27 (28b). Mumbai were in a bit of bother with two new men at the crease and needed a partnership. Tirumalasetti Suman hadn’t batted much in the tournament but he went all guns blazing straight away. Suman was smashing the ball all round the ground while his more illustious partner Rohit Sharma struggled at the other end. Suman raced on to 20 off just 8 balls and was hitting pretty much every ball off the middle of his bat.

Rohit Sharma (12) fell to his namesake Rahul Sharma in an over in which just 1 run was scored, but Suman wasn’t to stay quiet and went after Alfonso Thomas. Sharma finally sent Suman back to the pavilion too, but he had done great damage scoring 36 off just 16 balls. Sharma on the other hand was exceptional too, finishing with figures of 2 for 7 from 4 overs, and the 24-year old leggie is staking a genuine case for national selection.

Andrew Symonds fell for just 3, but Kieron Pollard was in a mood to entertain as he took the attack to Pune. He made full use of length balls from Thomas and smashed him for 20 off 4 balls and Harbhajan followed with a massive six straight down the ground. Mumbai had been struggling to get near 150, but it came up in that 28 run over. The Pune Warriors struggled in the field and their poor fielding gave some easy runs to Mumbai, but Jerome Taylor managed to keep his compatirot Pollard quiet and didn’t give away any boundaries in the last over. Pollard got out off the last ball of the innings having scored 30 in just 21 balls.

Pune had the worst imaginable start, losing Jesse Ryder to a first ball duck as Harbhajan Singh struck gold right away. Manish Pandey played some good strokes but lost the painfully out of form Graeme Smith for 6 (12b) in the 4^th over. Abhishek Jhunjhunwala was promoted to lift the run rate but he too struggled, and the required rate sky-rocketed. Pandey was playing sensibly but was denied most of the strike as Pune struggled to even rotate the strike. Pune had scored just 31 in the powerplay and it looked like that they had messed up their batting order once again.

Pandey kept going at one end but Jhunjhunwala got out trying to accelerate. Yuvraj Singh finally made it to the middle and needed to play one of the innings of his life to take his team home. The Punjabi south-paw was looking for maximums, and after clearing the boundary twice, fell for 20 while attempting an upper cut off Malinga. Uthappa finally came in at no. 6, but it was already too late as Pune required 77 from the last 6 overs.

Mumbai didn’t relax and kept the pressure on the Pune batsmen. Runs were hard to come by, and the fans were firmly behind the pseudo away side. Pandey gathered confidence and decided to go after the bowling. He hit a six off Pollard to get close to 50 and reached the milestone on the 43^rd ball he faced. He whacked another one out of the park before he finally holed out on 59. Uthappa remained unbeaten on 34 off 26 balls while Malinga finished his spell picking up 3 wickets for just 25 runs.

Mumbai Indians go back to the top spot winning 7 out of their 9 games. They look by far the most consistent side in the tournament, although Kolkata and Chennai are not really giving up the chase. Mumbai Indians will look to seal a top 2 finish when they make the short trip back to the Wankhade to take on the Delhi Daredevils on Saturday.

The loss should really take the pressure off the Pune Warriors as making the play-offs is now realistically out of the question. They will be keen not to finish last, and will hope to end their barren run against the unpredictable Kings XI Punjab on Sunday.

Teams:

Pune Warriors: Jesse Ryder, Graeme Smith, Robin Uthappa(wk), Yuvraj Singh(c), Manish Pandey, Mithun Manhas, Abhishek Jhunjhunwala, Rahul Sharma, Srikanth Wagh, Jerome Taylor, Alfonso Thomas.

Mumbai Indians: Aiden Blizzard, Sachin Tendulkar(c), Ambati Rayudu(wk), Keiron Pollard, Rohit Sharma, Andrew Symonds, Tirumalsetti Suman, Dhawal Kulkarni, Harbhajan Singh, Munaf Patel, Lasith Malinga

Mini Scorecard:

Mumbai Indians 160/7 in 20 overs (8.05 Runs per over)
T Suman 36(16) R Sharma 2-7
K Pollard 30(21) Y Singh 2-22

Pune Warriors 139/7 in 20 overs (6.95 runs per over)
M Pandey 59(47) L Malinga 3-25
R Uthappa 34*(26) H Singh 1-13

Mumbai Indians win by 21 runs

File Photograph Copyright: Gayatri Naik

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