IPL: Mumbai Beat Pune By One Run

Mumbai Indians and Pune Warriors played out yet another nail biter, at the Sahara Stadium on Thursday. The visitors managed to eke out a one run win in an attritional match, that Pune should be gutted for having lost.

Mumbai after choosing to bat got a slow yet assured start. Tendulkar and Franklin took the team to 50 off eight overs. Franklin and Rohit Sharma fell in quick succession and thereafter the run rate started dropping sharply. Nehra who got taken for 14 runs in his first over, made a superb comeback by sending back Tendulkar and then Peterson. The Mumbai innings went into freefall and only a couple of late strikes from Malinga took the score to 120. It was yet another poor batting performance by Mumbai in the face of some disciplined bowling. Other than Nehra, Bhuvneshwar Kumar was the pick of the bowlers with two wickets for nine runs in his three overs.

The small target meant that the normally slow starting batsmen of the Warriors could play their normal game without bothering about a rising asking run rate. However, they seemed to go too much into their shell. Harbhajan, Munaf et al bowled suffocating lines and lengths, and the batsmen played into their hands by not showing any imagination or purpose. To make matters worse Pune lost 4 wickets in a heap to make it 47/4. Ganguly and Mithun Manhas went about repairing the innings, with the latter doing all the scoring. Dada looked ill at ease and kept making the task tougher for his partner. Manhas on the other hand pumped in much needed momentum into the innings. He however received very little support from the rest.

36 required off 4 overs, became 16 off 2. A typical superlative over by Malinga meant only 4 were conceded in the 19^th. Munaf gave away just 4 off his first 4 deliveries and with eight needed off the last two balls, Mumbai were almost through. Bhuvneshwar Kumar lofted the penultimate delivery for a boundary setting the crowd, the players and the commentators on fire. With four needed to win off the last ball, Munaf bowled a full toss on the legs , which the batsmen could only hit to the mid wicket fielder and scamper for two , ensuring Mumbai Indians dodged a bullet.