PUNE: Mumbai Indians made it three victories on the trot as Kings XI Punjab celebrated just their second success in the Indian Premier League when they upstaged Gujarat Lions on Sunday.
Mumbai skipper Rohit Sharma continued his prolific run by nonchalantly mastering a 160-run chase in Pune against Rising Pune Supergiant with a lot of calm and composure to strike an unbeaten 85. His efforts were enough to take his side through to a comprehensive eight-wicket victory and lifting them to number two in the points table.
After being put in to bat, Pune didn’t have the best of starts losing opener Ajinkya Rahane as early as in the second over. But some outstanding batting display from Steven Smith and Saurab Tiwary got them scoring at close to 10 runs per over at one point in time.
But the moment Smith departed scoring a whirlwind 23-ball 45; it was then that the Pune innings slowly began to come to a halt. Tiwary though reached his half century but fell for 57 in the need for acceleration.
Jasprit Bumrah was impressive in taking 3-29 as Pune made 159-5.
In Rajkot, spinner Axar Patel grabbed a hat-trick to star in Punjab’s 23-run victory against IPL leaders Gujarat, who fell like nine pins chasing a modest total of 155 completely dumbfounded by some disciplined bowling from the Kings XI bowlers and shrewd captaincy from their new captain Murali Vijay.
Vijay himself set a good example by contributing a 41-ball 55 before falling to Shivil Kaushik, the spinner who reminded everyone time and again of former South African spinner Paul Adams.
Kaushik ended up with 3-20 in his four overs.
The chase was meant to be a cake walk but Gujarat crumbled for a change to be finish making 131-9 as Patel ended up with 4-21 in his four overs as Punjab managed to end a run of three consecutive losses.
Summarised scores:
Mumbai Indians beat Rising Pune Supergiants by eight wickets.
RISING PUNE SUPERGIANTS 159-5 in 20 overs (S.S. Tiwary 57, S.P.D. Smith 45, M.S. Dhoni 24; J.J. Bumrah 3-29); MUMBAI INDIANS 161-2 in 18.3 overs (R.G. Sharma 85 not out, J.C. Buttler 27 not out, A.T. Rayudu 22, P.A. Patel 21).
Kings XI Punjab beat Gujarat Lions by 23 runs.
KINGS XI PUNJAB 154 in 19.5 overs (M. Vijay 55, W.P. Saha 33, D.A. Miller 31, M.P. Stoinis 27; S. Kaushik 3-20, P. Kumar 2-25); GUJARAT LIONS 131-9 in 20 overs (J.P. Faulkner 32, Ishan Kishan 27, S.K. Raina 18; A.R. Patel 4-21, M.M. Sharma 3-32).
Published in Dawn, May 3rd , 2016
