IPL 6: MI vs RCB: Heroes of the match

The Mumbai Indians romped home to a very comfortable victory over the Royal Challengers, defeating them by a whopping margin of 58 runs. These were the top performers of the evening:

Dwayne Smith

Most of Mumbai’s problems at the beginning of this season stemmed from lacklustre starts from their opening pair consisting of Ricky Ponting and Sachin Tendulkar. Ponting then dropped himself down the order and eventually on to the bench in order to accommodate Dwayne Smith in the all-important powerplay where they were losing quite a few runs.

Smith responded well, scoring 62 against Kolkata in the previous game and followed it up with a characteristically flashy 50 runs at the top against a pace-heavy Royal Challengers attack that put them out of the game immediately, setting up a platform for the destructive Mumbai middle order.

His assault caught Kohli’s men off-guard and did maximum damage by the time they realized what had hit them.

Kieron Pollard

Kieron Pollard is having his best season for the Mumbai Indians so far, with the promotion in the batting order clearly working wonders.

When he came into bat at 118/3, there was a fear that Mumbai might consume a couple of overs and allow the Royal Challengers a way back into the match as the bowlers were displaying a semblance of a comeback.

But Pollard ensured that the momentum stayed strong in the favour of the men in blue, with some colossal hits that kept the bowlers fearing the worst. In the end, he was one of the three wickets to fall consecutively in the 18^th over which cost his team a few runs. But his effort of 34 off 16 balls was a game-winning knock.

Harbhajan Singh

Harbhajan Singh had a terrible night bowling-wise against the Kolkata Knight Riders thanks to a Yusuf Pathan show that lasted only – funnily enough – for the duration of his first over.

It didn’t seem like that had the slightest effect on him when he stepped up to the plate to bowl to Chris Gayle though, as he produced some classic loopy off-spinners that teased the big Jamaican and eventually had him hole out to Ambati Rayudu on the mid-wicket boundary.

Harbhajan then accounted for Arun Karthik’s wicket to complete his spell that costed Mumbai less than his one over against Kolkata.

Dhawal Kulkarni

As Mumbai’s premier bowler in the Ranji Trophy for a long time now, Kulkarni will wonder why his IPL career never quite kicked off. In fact, his spot was readily awarded to quite a few inexperienced bowlers up until this game.

It’ll be surprising if that is the case henceforth, and will take some very brave captaincy by Rohit Sharma.

Kulkarni made good use of the conditions on offer and the looming required rate around Bangalore’s batsmen to flatten out their chase immediately before and after the fall of Gayle’s wicket by removing Dilshan, Kohli as well as AB de Villiers in a span of just ten deliveries. His spell of 3/19 was the key to Mumbai’s ease in defending the total.