Mumbai produced a wonderful bowling effort to restrict the Pune Warriors to just 129 after winning the toss and electing to field. Lasith Malinga was at his best, mixing yorkers and slower bouncers well to leave the Pune batsmen mesmerized. They also found great support from the rest of the bowling order with only Kieron Pollard and James Franklin going over 7 per over. Munaf Patel, Harbhajan Singh and Pragyan Ojha were all on the top of their game to ensure Pune never recovered from the early stutter.
Pune lost their openers Manish Pandey and Sourav Ganguly with just 15 runs on the board. When Wayne Parnell and later Callum Ferguson too departed without making much of an impact the Ganguly-led team were reeling at 47/4 in the 9th over. Pune finally got their first fruitful partnership underway, thanks to Robin Uthappa and Steve Smith. The pair put on 44 runs to take the Pune Warriors close to the hundred run mark but tragedy struck the embattled team again.Pollard struck to send back Uthappa and Mumbai made sure they never loosened their grip on the game thereafter. Marlon Samuels fell to a superb yorker from Malinga while Bhuvneshwar Kumar had no answer to an Ojha stunner. With time running out, Steven Smith played a vital hand to help Pune put in excess of 125. The Australian leg-spinner hit 39 off 32, before he was out in the final over, and with the help of Murali Kartik played his part in helping give the Pune bowlers something to bowl at.
Smith's effort was not futile as Ganguly managed to inspire his bowlers to have a real go at the Mumbai line-up. Ashok Dinda produced a fine performance, taking 4 wickets for just 18 runs as Harbhajan's side were restricted to 101/9 handing Pune a comfortable 28 run win. Murali Karthik too turned in a performance of the highest quality as he picked up 2 important wickets to rattle the Mumbai top-order.
Pune had the Mumbai top 3 back in the hut at the end of the 2nd over. Kartik had sent back big-hitting Richard Levi off the 2nd ball of the innings while Dinda went one better and picked up the wickets of Ambati Rayudu and Rohit Sharma to leave the Champions League winners reeling at 5/3. Dinesh Karthik and James Franklin tried to put things back on track with a patient stand to take the score past 50 without further setbacks. Karthik also took with him the bulk of Mumbai's hopes when he feel for 32 and when Suryakumar Yadav and Kieron Pollard fell cheaply, Pune were outright favourites to take 2 points from the game.
Scoreboard:
Pune Warriors : 129/9 in 20 ovs
Steven Smith - 39
Lasith Malinga - 2/16
Mumbai Indians : 101/9 in 20 ovs
Dinesh Karthik - 32
Ashok Dinda - 4/18
Man of the Match : Steven Smith
