Pollard powers MI to win after Badree blitz

Indian Premier League
IPL

The Mumbai Indians recovered from 7 for 4 to chase down the target of 143 set for them by the Royal Challengers Bangalore.

Samuel Badree to a hat-trick to put the Indians in early strife but Kieron Pollard played an immense knock under pressure to help lift the Mumbai franchise to victory.

Earlier Virat Kohli marked his return to the IPL with a fifty notching 62 as he opened the batting with Chris Gayle (22).

RCB struggled on a wicket that was slow and taking turn and AB de Villiers (19 off 21 balls) couldn’t repeat his hitting display from the previous match.

Mitchell McClenagan picked up the massive wickets of Kohli and Mandeep Singh (0) and would end as the pick of the Mumbai Indians bowlers with figures of 2 for 20 from his four overs.

RCB would post a total of 142 for 5 and while it didn’t look enough at the innings break when Badree’s shift was over the Mumbai Indians were in all sorts of trouble.

The leg spinner returned the best ever figures for a player making his franchise debut in the IPL taking 4 for 9 from his four overs with the Mumbai Indians lurching to 33 for 5 at the end of 8 overs.

Pollard and Krunal Pandya would put together a brilliantly calculated partnership that allowed the Mumbai Indians to win quite comfortably in the end.

Pollard and Krunal bided their time and attacked certain bowlers with Pawan Negi getting particularly brutal treatment in his second over which went for 19 runs.

The pair added 93 for the sixth wicket before Pollard (70) holed out to Yuzvendra Chahal having just whacked the leggie for six.

The Pandya brothers closed out the match with Hardik (9*) smashing the winning runs by clearing the rope to take the Indians past RCB with 7 balls to spare while Krunal ended unbeaten on 37.

Mumbai Indians skipper Rohit Sharma said after the match: “It was a great effort with the bat. We always had the belief. We’ve always had guys pull things out in those situations, to show character. Pollard and Krunal did exactly that.

“We executed perfectly with the ball in the Powerplays and we bowled to their weaknesses. It was a collective performance. All the bowlers complemented each other. It made my job easy.”

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