The Mumbai Indians moved up to third place and the Bangalore Royal Challengers to fifth with wins in the Indian Premier League on Friday.
Mumbai defeated last-place Kolkata Knight Riders by nine runs at East London, while Bangalore defeated Kings XI Punjab by eight runs at Kingsmead.
The idle Deccan Chargers and Delhi Daredevills remained first and second in the standings, while Mumbai took over third from Punjab, who edged Bangalore for fourth on run rate.
PHOTO: AFP
Jean-Paul Duminy hit 52 not out in the Mumbai Indians’ 148-6 and fast bowler Zaheer Khan took 3-31 against the Kolkata Knight Riders to steer the Indians to victory at Buffalo Park.
Mumbai restricted Kolkata to 139-6, with Khan bowling openers Sourav Ganguly and Chris Gayle in the first three overs.
Brad Hodge top scored for Kolkata with 73, sharing a third-wicket partnership of 89 with Morne van Wyk (32).
After poor form with the bat, Kolkata captain Brendon McCullum dropped himself down the order from opener to No. 6, but that did not change his fortunes. He was dismissed for 5 at a crucial stage of the game when his team needed 19 runs to win in the final over.
“When someone like [Lasith] Malinga bowls well at the death, as he did, it becomes difficult to score boundaries,” McCullum said of his team’s failure to overcome Mumbai.
The defeat will increase pressure on New Zealander McCullum, who was on record saying he would quit the captaincy if his team failed to make the semi-finals.
The second match saw Kings XI Punjab captain Yuvraj Singh take a hat-trick and score 50 to win the man-of-the-match award, but he still ended on the losing side as the Bangalore Royal Challengers edged home by eight runs.
Allrounder Roelof van der Merwe scored 35 and took two wickets to set up Bangalore’s win.
Van der Merwe hit three sixes and three boundaries to help Bangalore to 145-9, dominating a 44-run partnership with Praveen Kumar (9 not out) after Bangalore were in trouble at 84-6.
Van der Merwe then took 2-22 with his slow left-arm spin off three overs as Punjab were held to 137-7.
Medium pacer Praveen Kumar took 2-27 for Bangalore. With Punjab needing 13 runs from the final over, Kumar had Irfan Pathan caught on 12 by Virat Kohli off a full toss, and bowled Piyush Chawla for 3 with the penultimate ball of the match.
Captain Anil Kumble claimed 2-25.
Punjab batsman Yusuf Abdulla took 4-36, including a maiden, to become the leading wicket-taker in the IPL with 13 dismissals.
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