Pollock back at his best

2008-04-29 22:08

Kolkata - An unbroken fourth wicket stand of 113 between Dwayne Bravo and Robin Uthappa guided the Mumbai Indians to a morale-boosting seven-wicket (and first) victory in their IPL match against the Kolkata Knight Riders at Eden Gardens on Tuesday.

Bravo's magnificent 64 not out won the match as the Mumbai franchise made short work of a modest target of 137-8 while Uthappa finished unbeaten on 37 from as many deliveries.

The victory had been set up earlier by disciplined and canny bowling from the Mumbai duo of Sanath Jayasuriya and Shaun Pollock who combined to restrict the Knight Riders to a miserable total of 137-8 in their 20 overs.

Man-of-the-match Jayasuriya produced one of the spells of the tournament to claim 3-14 from his four overs while Pollock, captaining in the absence of injured Sachin Tendulkar and banned Harbhajan Singh, was no less impressive in returning figures of 2-27.

Pollock's wickets both came in the first over as the Knight Riders were stunned by the loss of both openers, Saurav Ganguly and Brendon McCullum, with just seven runs on the board.

Debabrata Das (29 from 20 balls) briefly threatened to put the home side back on track but Bravo and Dhaval Kulkarni kept a stranglehold on the middle overs and it was left to Laxmi Rattan Shukla to make the total semi-respectable with an unbeaten 40 from just 22 balls.

The Mumbai Indians, one of the pre-tournament favourites, ended their desperate start to the tournament despite Tendulkar's continued absence with a troublesome groin injury.

Teams:

Mumbai Indians: Robin Uthappa, Sanath Jayasuriya, Ajinkya Rahane, Shaun Pollock (captain), Abhishek Nayar, Dwayne Bravo, Dilhara Fernando, Ashish Nehra, Dhaval Kulkarni, Manish Pandey, Pinal Shah.

Kolkata Knight Riders: Sourav Ganguly (captain), Brendon McCullum, Ricky Ponting, David Hussey, Mohammad Hafeez, Laxmi Rattan Shukla, Ajit Agarkar, Murali Kartik, Ishant Sharma, Ashok Dinda, Debabrata Das.

- SuperSport