Bengaluru: Mumbai Indians relied on a late assault from Kieron Pollard and Jos Buttler to beat Royal Challengers Bangalore by six wickets in their crucial IPL match and kept their hopes of a play-offs berth alive at M Chinnaswamy on Wednesday.
Chasing 152 for a win, Pollard and Buttler smashed unbeaten cameos of 35 and 29 respectively to share a partnership of 55 runs from just 3.3 overs for fifth wicket to take Mumbai home with eight balls to spare.
Pollard smashed three fours and two sixes in his 19-ball innings while Buttler hit one four and three sixes in his 11-ball unconquered knock.
Ambati Rayudu contributed with 47-ball 44 to keep Mumbai on track in chase after the dismissals of Rohit Sharma and Parthiv Patel. Bangalore kept the match alive with some brilliant fielding as Stuart Binny and AB de Villiers took a stunning catch each but in the end the score they were defending was found to be too small.
Buttler hit the winning runs as Mumbai reached 153 for four in 18.4 overs to notch up their sixth win in 11 matches and they jumped to fourth spot in the points table.
Bangalore, on the other hand, slumped to their sixth loss in 10 matches and they remained on sixth spot with eight points. They will now have to win all their remaining matches to have a chance of making it to the play-off stage.
Mumbai suffered an early jolt with Parthiv getting out in the second over with Sreenath Aravind inducing a thick edge from the batsman's bat for Shane Watson to take a regulation catch at first slip.
Rohit Sharma and Ambati Rayudu then steadied the Mumbai Indians' innings with some sensible batting.
The visiting side were 39 for one at the end of powerplay overs and were cruising along before Rohit was dismissed at a crucial time. The Mumbai captain did not play his pull shot properly off Varun Aaron and de Villiers pulled off an easy catch at long-on.
Rohit's dismissal somewhat changed the scenario as the asking has reached near 10 an over by then. Binny then took a stunning catch near the boundary ropes to dismiss debutant Nitish Rana (9) of the bowling of Yuzvendra Chahal to leave Mumbai at 79 for 3 in the 13th over. Mumbai needed 54 runs from the last five overs and they suffered another jolt as well-set batsman Rayudu was dismissed in 16th over due with Villiers coming up with an exceptional catch as he plucked the ball inches above the ground with a forward lunging dive. Pollard and Buttler, however, kept their cool as they smashed 18 and 16 runs in the next two overs with a flurry of fours and sixes off Shane Watson and Chris Jordan respectively to ease off the pressure.
Mumbai needed just 10 runs from the final 12 balls and Buttler ended the match early by hitting a six on the fourth ball of the penultimate over to take Mumbai home.
Earlier, Lokesh Rahul struck a superb unbeaten half century as Bangalore made a late recovery after a struggling start to post a decent 151 for four.
The Bangalore top order batsmen, except for Rahul (68 not out), failed to click after being put into bat but a late flurry of lusty blows from the wicketkeeper batsman saw the home side reach to a fighting total.
Rahul, who came in when Bangalore were in a precarious 17 for two in the fourth over, struck three fours and four sixes in his 53-ball unbeaten innings.
He shared 43 runs with AB de Villiers (24) for the third wicket and another 53 with Sachin Baby (25 not out) for the unbroken fifth wicket as the home side went past 150-run mark on account of the late recovery.
Bangalore were 60 for 2 at the halfway stage but added 91 runs from the next 10 overs. Sachin gave an able support to Rahul towards the close of the innings with a quickfire knock of 13-ball 25 not out which had two fours and two sixes.
The cause of the home side was helped by the 23 runs Kieron Pollard leaked in the 18th over with Sachin Baby hitting two sixes and a four while Rahul also his share of a maximum hit.
For Mumbai, Mitchell McClenaghan, Tim Southee and Krunal Pandya took a wicket each.
Bangalore captain Virat Kohli (7), who has been in red hot form, met with a rare failure tonight. He struck a six on the fifth ball of the match bowled by Southee but was dismissed in the second over by Mitchell McClenaghan.
Kohli poked at a shortish delivery which was angling away, trying to guide it to third man, but only to find Harbhajan Singh taking an easy catch.
Two overs later, Chris Gayle (5) perished as he tried to smash a back of a length delivery on the off bowled by Southee with Rohit Sharma taking a well-judged catch.
AB de Villiers (24) and Shane Watson (15) got off to starts but were not able to convert them into a big score
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