Two Indians give Mumbai fourth straight win

Watching Harbhajan Singh on a day when he isn’t battling self-doubts and is reasonably confident of his art can be an absorbing experience. Tuesday was one such day where he was at the top of his game. Slowing down his deliveries, looping it up, deceiving the batsmen with the occasional straighter ones and with little variations in the release of the deliveries, Harbhajan had a great outing at the Wankhede stadium.

His mini-tussle with Yuvraj Singh stood out. He constantly slowed down the pace, gave it a fair tweak and got he ball a nice loop. A cautious Yuvraj just pushed and prodded. On one occasion though, in Harbhajan’s third over, he was tempted into a slog sweep but was deceived by the dip and the turn. The ball broke away and popped off his arm to slips. Post that close call, Yuvraj retreated to caution but the likes of Kedhar Jadhav didn’t and paid for it.

In Harbhajan’s final over, Jadhav rushed out too early, giving the bowler time to adjust. On his bad day, when he isn’t that confident, Harbhajan might have fired it short, but not this time. He slid it straight with a fair amount of over spin that took the ball past the attempted cut and Parthiv Patel, the keeper, did the rest.

It was a perfect end to a fine start to his spell where he took a wicket off his first ball. Shreyas Iyer was striking the ball well and perhaps was over ambitious when he tried to swing Harbhajan to the square-leg boundary. It was the delivery where he grips the ball between his thumb and forefinger and manages to get the ball to skid rather than really turn. Iyer was done in by the lack of the turn and ended up miscuing his heave and was pouched.

Panic at rain

Lendl Simmons fell to a cracker of a delivery from Zaheer Khan that curved back in to trap him lbw in the third ball of the over and it led to a bit of panic in Mumbai’s camp. Flashes of lightning lit up the sky and suddenly, they seemed to think all they will get is a five-over game and started to worry about Duckworth/Lewis targets.

Or so it seemed as they started to throw the bat around. Hardik Pandya, promoted to No.3, top-edged an attempted pull and Parthiv Patel started to go too hard at the ball. As a result, he couldn’t find any timing in his shots and Mumbai reached 25 in four overs when the umpires decided to halt play.

There wasn’t rain but lightning and thunder seemed to have convinced them about imminent rain and the ground staff rushed in with the covers. After an inordinate delay without rain and without cricket, they finally resumed and the D/L rule indicated that Mumbai needed to be 38 in five overs.

Patel hit a four first ball before he sliced a slower one from Angelo Matthews straight to covers and now the D/L rule had jumped up the asking rate. Enter Harbhajan Singh, who too fell in the next over, playing on Coulter-Nile and it all began to look silly. Luckily, for Mumbai, rain did arrive at that juncture and they seemed far more settled when the game resumed.

Icy-cool contributions

They needed 113 from 14.3 overs and both Rohit Sharma and Ambati Rayudu played themselves in. Sharma lofted Imran Tahir for a six over long-on but it was an aberration as the duo dealt mainly in singles and twos. Rohit fell, bowled by a googly from Amit Mishra, but he had got the equation down to 53 from 28.

Kieron Pollard was welcomed by Mishra with a short-leg but struck an imperious six over long-on of his second delivery to send out a strong signal. Rayudu then smashed Zaheer over long-on to bring the equation to 37 from 23. From then on it was always going to be Mumbai’s game to lose but both held their nerves well and got the boundaries now and then to ensure the run-rate never escalated.

They picked 10 runs off Mathews in the 18th over and 14 off Coulter-Nile in the 19th that included a thunderous six over long-on from Pollard and a sliced four over backward point from Rayudu. Needing just 8 from the final over, Pollard crashed Tahir to wide long-on for a six and sealed it with a single off the next ball.