Durban: In the last Group B match, Sydney Sixers outplayed defending champions Mumbai Indians and delivered them a 12 run defeat. Mumbai couldn’t win a single match in the tournament and finished with two points from the four matches.
For Sydney, all their fast bowlers bowled beautifully and never allowed the powerful Mumbai batting line-up to get on top. Needing only 137 runs to win, Mumbai could only score 124 runs in their allotted quota of 20 overs.
Earlier in the day, Brad Haddin won the toss and chose to bat first. Sydnet brought in Peter Nevil in place of the unavailable Shane Watson. Both Nevil and Michael Lumb looked to attack the Mumbai new ball bowlers and got away with some streaky shots. Munaf Patel who was playing his first match of the tournament got the first wicket when Nevil got out trying to play a pull shot.
Lumb on the other end continued to play aggressive shots with little result, he eventually got out when he hooked a Malinga bouncer only to be caught by the square-leg fielder. Sixers continued to lose wickets as their skipper Haddin and then Henriques got out without doing too much damage to the score-board.
Some respite came for the Sixers in the form of Steven Smith who played a matured innings of 41 to take them out of the troubled situation. Some late flair from Nathan McCullum ensured that Sixers put a descent total on the board.
Mumbai Indians would have fancied chasing 136 runs and they did get off to s good start. Both Sachin Tendulkar and Dwayne Smith showed respect to the Sidney fast bowlers. Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc bowled at a good length and did not allow the Mumbai openers to break free.
Sachin and Smith took the Mumbai score past the fifty run-mark and it was looking as if Mumbai won’t have much trouble winning their first match. But one over from Henriques changed the game as he got both Smith and Sachin out in the ninth over. That infused panic in the Mumbai innings which accounted for Rohit Sharma’s run-out.
Dinesh Karthik who played amazingly well against Chennai was looking good on 18 before getting himself run-out. His wicket opened the flood gates as Mumbai batsmen had no answer to the pace that the Sydney bowlers generated.
Harbhajan Singh made a quick-fire 22 but that was not good enough to take Mumbai over the line as they succumbed to their third defeat of the tournament.
Brief Score:
Sydney Sixers 136/7 (Smith 41, Munaf 2-17)
Mumbai Indians 124/8 (Cummins 2-16)
By Indian Sports News Network
