Match Review of Kings XI Punjab vs. Mumbai Indians

Indian Premier League
Date 10th May 2011
TeamsKings XI Punjab vs. Mumbai Indians
Match no. 54
VenuePCA Stadium, Mohali
UmpiresS K Tarapore & R J Tucker Third Umpire: K Bharatan
TossMumbai Indians won the toss and elected to field

Playing XI

Kings XI Punjab Paul Valthaty Adam Gilchrist © Shaun Marsh Dinesh Karthik Abhishek Nayar Sunny Singh R. McLaren Piyush Chawla Ryan Harris Praveen Kumar L. Ablish

Mumbai Indians A Bizzard Sachin Tendulkar © Rohit Sharma Andrew Symonds Ambati Rayadu T. Suman Keiron Pollard Munaf Patel Lasith Mallinga Harbhajan Singh Dhawal Kulkarni

Kings XI Punjab ready to host the invincible looking Mumbai Indians at the PCA Stadium, Mohali. A battle between two teams which are poles apart on the points tally. One team has already qualified for the play off and the other team does not seem to have any chances of making to it however hard they may try.

There has been a lot of talk that if there is a bad performance due from the Mumbai Indians, it better comes before the play offs. No team in the IPL format has looked as strong as the Indians. Ambani's team has been playing together as one unit, where all have been consistently performing, if one fails, the other one pitches in to do the job for the team. Mumbai Indians top the standings with 14 points.

On the other hand the hosts Kings XI are languishing at the bottom and have the chances of making it to the play offs only if they win all their 5 matches. Though Punjab has some match winners but no one has been exceptional with bat or ball. Their too much dependence on the openers has become their problem, if top order fails, no one performs.

It was a full house at Mohali with the crowd cheering more for Tendulkar than for the home side. Mohali's pitch has always been the batsman paradise, where ball nicely comes on the bat. A total of 170 runs should be good one to defend. Sachin Tendulkar won the toss and decided to put opposition to bat.

Valthaty and Gilchrist opened the innings for Punjab, they were scoring at run a ball. The kind of variation, the Indians have in their bowling they just don't let the opposition batsmen settle. Soon Munaf Patel gave his team the 1st breakthrough when he got Valthaty out on an individual score of 14 runs.

Once again, not a great start by Punjab. Shaun Marsh was the next man to join the skipper. Both tried to build a partnership to anchor the innings and were successful to put together 70 runs stand in just 42 balls. At a total of 92 runs, Punjab lost their skipper after scoring 22 of 22 balls. However, Marsh looked confident and was a part of another partnership of 38 runs with Dinesh Karthik. He scored quick 43 of 34 balls before getting out to Patel.

Dinesh Karthik made a good contribution of 31 runs in just 24 balls in the middle order and was involved in some very small but useful partnership. Once Karthik got out, wickets kept falling one after another in an effort to take the run rate up. Munaf and Malinga ensured that they wrapped up the lower middle order quickly. With little contributions the home side managed to reach a total of 163/8. Munaf Patel was the pick of the bowlers taking 5 wickets with just 21 runs conceded.

The Indians were chasing a fighting total but looking at their recent form, it looked quite achievable. Their innings was opened by the regular openers Bizzard and Tendulkar. Parveen Kumar gave his team an early breakthrough by taking the huge wicket of Tendulkar after scoring just 6 runs. The Indians were 1 wicket down for just 19 runs. Rohit Sharma who has played some stupendous knocks this season was the next person on the crease. Before he could settle to play shots, he was removed by the Punjab spinner Sharma.

Symonds, a great hitter was the next man in. Before he could settle down with Bizzard the later got out after scoring 15 runs. The Indians were in some sort of trouble now with 3 wickets down for just 27 runs. Rayadu another promising batsman from the Indians middle order came out turn around things his team's way. Unfortunately, Symonds's got run out when both the batsmen at the crease landed up being on the same side.

With wickets falling at short intervals, suddenly the total of 169 started looking unachievable. Rayadu was the next man to follow. Pollard played some shots hitting a boundary and a huge six but that was not good enough. The Punjab bowling attack was probably too good for the Indians to handle. The complete batting order tumbled and all they could manage to reach was a total of 87 runs, their lowest ever IPL total.

The Punjab spinner Bhargav bowled an excellent spell claiming 4 wickets for 22 runs in 2.5 overs. No one in the Indians managed to cross the 20 runs mark. The hosts crushed the best looking team of this IPL and registered a huge 76 runs victory. This victory does not guarantee the Punjab team a place in the play off but would have surely done wonders to their pride.

Result: Kings XI Punjab won by 76 runs.

The Awards

Man of the match
B A Bhatt for claiming six wickets

Maximum Sixes
Dinesh Karthik

Kingfisher Fair Play Award
Chennai Super Kings top the chart

Orange Cap (The leading run scorer)
Virender Sehwag- Delhi Daredevils.

Purple Cap (The leading wicket taker)
Lasith Mallinga- Mumbai Indians



Last Updated on 16 May 2011