Pollard, Pandya's late blitz helps Mumbai Indian beat Kings XI

ABU DHABI: Four- time champion Mumbai Indians registered an important win in the 13th Indian Premier League on Thursday night as they beat Kings XI Punjab by 48 runs at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium. This was MI's second win in this edition while Kings XI suffered third loss.

After scoring huge 191 runs, the Rohit Sharma-led led side restricted the opponent at just 143 in allotted overs taking 8 wickets.

Jusprit Bumrah, Rahul Chahar and James Pattinson took two wickets each. For Kings XI Nicholas Pooran was the top scorer with 44 in 27 balls while Mayank Agarwal and Krishnappa Gowtham added 25 and 22 respectively.

Earlier, a late blitz from Kieron Pollard and Hardik Pandya helped Mumbai Indians post 191/4.

KXIP won the toss and chose to field. Sheldon Cottrell gave them a good start with the wicket of Quinton de Kock in the very first over. While captain Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav then seemed to be steadying the ship for MI, the latter was run out by Mohammed Shami with a direct hit from short fine leg.

Ishan Kishan, who scored a memorable 99 in the previous match against Royal Challengers Bangalore, struggled to get the run rate for much of his innings. His troubled stay at the crease was eventually ended on 28 off 32 balls by Krishnappa Gowtham, thus ending a 62-run stand between him and Rohit.

Pollard then came in and provided able company as Rohit increased the run rate. The MI captain, who crossed 5,000 runs in the IPL through the course of the innings, looked set for a century but a brilliant piece of teamwork between Glenn Maxwell and James Neesham at the boundary behind the bowler led to his dismissal.

Maxwell ran in from long-off and caught the ball which Rohit was looking to deposit over the ropes off Shami. His momentum however took him over the ropes but he lobed it back towards Neesham who ran in from long on before he touched the ground beyond the boundary.

But Pollard and Hardik came in and smashed 44 runs off the last overs to take MI beyond the 190-run mark.

Brief scores: MI 191/4 in 20 overs (Rohit Sharma 70, Kieron Pollard 47; Sheldon Cottrell 1/20) beat Kings XI 143/8 in 20 overs (Pooran 44, Mayank 25, Bumrah 2/18). IANS

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