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Kings falter against Mumbai

Mumbai - An inspired flurry of wickets from Harbhajan Singh led the Mumbai Indians to an eight-run victory over the Chennai Super Kings in their IPL match at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Friday evening.

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Chasing 165 for the win, the Super Kings looked comfortable enough at 119/4 with five overs remaining. Only a batting collapse would rob them of an away triumph, and Harbhajan provided exactly that for Mumbai.

The experienced off-spinner destroyed the middle and lower order with four wickets in the space of three overs, including three in the 18th.

He returned outstanding figures of 5/18 in his four overs, having earlier taken the key top-order scalp of Suresh Raina with a sharp catch off his own bowling.

The Harbhajan onslaught left the Super Kings reeling, even though set batsman Subramaniam Badrinath had survived the carnage. He was unable to get much of the strike as wickets fell at the other end, and was left needing an unlikely 25 from the last over.

His side ended up nine runs short of their target, on 156/9 at the end of their innings. Badrinath, though, could be proud of his 71 not out.

Mumbai’s effort after the break was patchy with the ball, but utterly brilliant in the field. The bowlers gave away eight wides, but some tremendous stops made up for that.

Two of the Mumbai catches were also game-changing efforts worthy of special mention. Kieron Pollard’s diving dismissal of the established Mike Hussey for 41 in the 12th over was a huge turning point, as was Rohit Sharma’s equally impressive sprawl to remove new man MS Dhoni one over later.

Earlier, Sharma’s classy innings of 87 helped the Indians set the Super Kings a tricky 165, as Mumbai posted a score of 164/4 in their 20 overs.

Sharma’s confident 48-ball knock was a pleasure to watch, as the Indian No 4 showed off shots all around the wicket. He mixed deft touches with hard hitting, which included an enormous straight six off Suraj Randiv to bring up his 50.

His aggression was not tempered by the fact that he came to the wicket with his side in a shaky position at 13/2, following Albie Morkel and Doug Bollinger’s crafty early use of the swing and bounce on offer.

With Sachin Tendulkar back in the dugout after getting caught trying to pull Bollinger, the Super Kings would have been feeling optimistic. But it was almost all Mumbai from that moment onwards.

Sharma and the decidedly streakier Ambati Rayudu put on a vital 61 for the third wicket before Rayudu was stumped in the 12th over.

That brought Australian big-hitter Andrew Symonds to the wicket, and the scoring rate clicked up a gear as he and Sharma started to really punish the Chennai attack.

The pair had begun to score at 10 an over when Bollinger returned to limit the damage at the end of the innings.

The Australian bowler claimed Sharma’s wicket in a good final over that went for just four, as he ended with figures of 2/30 in his four overs.

But South African Morkel was the tightest of the Chennai bowlers, going for just 19 in his four after he began with eight dot balls at the start of his spell. He also took the first wicket, as he had Rajagopal Sathish caught following a poorly executed pull shot.

Teams:

Mumbai Indians:
SR Tendulkar (capt), RG Sharma, AT Rayudu (wk), JEC Franklin, KA Pollard, A Symonds, R Sathish, Harbhajan Singh, AN Ahmed, MM Patel, SL Malinga

Chennai Super Kings: M Vijay, MEK Hussey, SK Raina, S Badrinath, MS Dhoni (capt & wk), S Anirudha, JA Morkel, R Ashwin, Joginder Sharma, DE Bollinger, S Randiv
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