Mumbai Indians trounce Royal Challengers

A confident Mumbai Indians (MI) late Tuesday thrashed Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) by nine wickets in the fourth edition of the T20 Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Chinnaswamy stadium here.

Set to score 141 in the stipulated 20 overs, Mumbai scored 143 in 18.3 overs, with skipper Sachin Tendulkar at 55 and Ambatti Rayudu at 63 remaining not out.

Earlier, home team RCB was able to put up a modest 140 in 20 overs for the loss of four wickets after Tendulkar won the toss and elected to field.

Though Tendulkar was declared man of the match, he was gracious to share the honours with Rayudu who hit nine fours and scored 63 in 50 balls as against 55 in 46 balls with seven fours by the former.

Both the teams came into their second game after winning their first encounter - RCB over Kochi Tuskers by six wickets Saturday at Kochi and MI over Delhi Daredevils by eight wickets Sunday in Delhi.

In contrast to a disastrous start by RCB when its opener Mayank Agarwal was skittled out on the very first ball for a duck by MI’s speedster Lasith Malinga, with the off-stump cart-wheeling, Mumbai Indians openers Davy Jacobs and Tendulkar started on a high note, putting up 33 runs for the first wicket partnership in four overs.

After keeper Jacobs was bowled out by Dirk Nannes, Rayudu joined the batting maestro (Tendulkar) to chase the modest target and never looked back, even as the bipartisan frenzied fans kept cheering MI as much as RCB for every four the duo hit.

Earlier, in a bid to consolidated the innings, RCB’s opener Tilakaratne Dilshan and A.B. De Villiers put up a 91-run third wicket partnership after Virat Kohli got out cheaply for 12 in the fifth over when he was brilliantly caught by Jacobs of Kieron Pollard’s ball.

When RCB lost Asad Khan Pathan for a duck soon after De Villiers was caught and bowled by Pollard for 38 in 36 balls with three fours, Saurabh Tiwary joined in-form Dilshan to accelerate the run-rate in the slog overs by scoring 16 in 10 balls with three fours.

Dilshan was the top scorer for RCB hitting 59 in 52 balls with four fours and two mighty sixes.