Kieron Pollard and Jos Buttler's late assault helped Mumbai Indians keep their hopes alive with a convincing six-wicket victory against Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League, in Bengaluru, on Wednesday.
Having restricted the RCB to just 151 for four, Mumbai Indians knocked off the target with eight balls to spare with Pollard blasting 35 off 19 balls and Buttler hitting a quickfire 29 from 11 balls as the duo were involved in an unbroken stand of 55 runs from 21 balls to take the match away from the hosts.
With this victory, Mumbai Indians jumped to the fourth spot in the IPL standings with six wins from 11 games, while RCB, who have four wins from 10 games, will have to win their remaining four games and hope for other results to go their way to advance to the play-offs.
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.
Mumbai had captain Rohit Sharma at the other end and along with Rayudu steadied the innings with sensible batting.
The visiting side were 39 for one at the end of six overs of Powerplay 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 had an easy catch at the long-on.
Rohit's dismissal for 24 in the 10th over somewhat changed the scenario as asking rate reached close to the 10 runs per over mar at that point.
Stuart Binny took a stunning catch near the boundary ropes to dismiss debutant Nitish Rana (9) of the bowling of Yuzvendra Chahal to put RCB on top as Mumbai were reduced to 79 for three in the 13th over.
The match was evenly poised as Mumbai needed 54 runs from the last five overs before they suffered another jolt as well-set batsman Rayudu was dismissed in 16th over due with de Villiers coming up with an exceptional catch as he plucked the ball inches above the ground with a forward lunging dive at long-on.
Pollard and Buttler, however, kept their cool as they took 18 and 16 runs in the next two overs with a flurry of fours and sixes off Shane Watson and Chris Jordan 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 in the fourth ball of the penultimate over bowled by Varun Aaron to take Mumbai home.
Lokesh Rahul struck a fighting unbeaten half century as Royal Challengers Bangalore made a late recovery after a struggling start to post a decent 151 for four in their quota of 20 overs.
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 at the Chinnasawmy Stadium.
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 of the season. He struck a six in 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 the starts but could not convert on them. De Villiers was out in the 11th over when he was shaping up for a big innings while Watson was run out as a result of a brilliant direct throw by Rohit.
