Sharjah: Defending champions Mumbai Indians’ batting misery continued as they crashed to their fourth successive defeat in the day match of the Pepsi Indian Premier League at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium on Sunday.
After restricting Mumbai to 125 for six, Delhi Daredevils eased to a comfortable six-wicket win with seven balls to spare with Murali Vijay topscoring with 40. Mumbai would have been bowled for below 100 runs, but for Kieron Pollard’s unbeaten 33 off 30 balls.
Mumbai won the toss and elected to bat, hoping for a better show. Though they made some changes to the batting line-up with skipper Rohit Sharma promoting himself up the batting order as an opener, he lasted only five balls to score four runs before being run out off a good pick-up and throw from Mohammad Shami.
A run out would have been the last thing that his team would have wanted at that stage. In the fourth over, Wayne Parnell dismissed opener Aditya Tare, who hoped to clear the boundary at deep midwicket but landed up being caught by Quinton de Kock for 8.
Corey Anderson, who failed again, scored just 13 runs off 14 balls. He hit Unadkat to de Kock at deep midwicket for a second catch and two overs later, Ambati Rayudu too returned to the dugout, offering the simplest of catches off leftarm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem to Laxmi Ratan Shukla at long on for 14.
Michael Hussey, who came down the batting order, managed to reach double figures but Unadkat bowled him with a yorker soon. It was another display of his poor form and with five wickets down for 63 in 13.5 overs, it was doubtful if Mumbai would even reach the 100-run mark.
Kieron Pollard took up the challenge and with good support from Chidhambaram Gautam, steered the team past the 100 run mark. They put on 40 runs for the sixth wicket before Gautam got run out for 22. Pollard shocked Gautam by calling him for a non-existent second run.
Harbhajan Singh hit a six off Unadkat over midwicket before retiring hurt with one ball left for the innings after being hit on the boot. Mumbai Indians hit 25 runs in the last two overs.
Pollard remained unbeaten on 33 with two boundaries and two sixes. Incidentally, the two sixes Pollard hit off Shami were so powerful that the first sailed into the stands beyond long on and second into the roof of the stadium.
Chasing a run-rate of 6.25, Delhi openers Quinton de Kock and Murali Vijay batted with confidence. They refused to go for the big shots, preferring to place the shots through the gaps. They could pick only 31 runs in the first six overs with Harbhajan Singh and Lasith Malinga bowling two tight overs between them.
Corey Anderson ended de Kock’s stay by having him caught at point by Hussey for 16. Jean Paul Duminy joined Murali but runs became hard to get with Mumbai bowling tightly.
