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Pollard powers Mumbai to first win

Inspired by the power hitting of Kieron Pollard, Mumbai Indians claimed their first victory of the Champions League Twenty20 tournament with a 31-run win over Guyana.

Pollard smashed 72 from 30 balls, with nine sixes and a four, to lead Mumbai to 184-4 in the Group B match at Kingsmead. The total was too much for Guyana, which finished on 153-6. Captain Ramnaresh Sarwan top-scored with 46.

Dwayne Bravo and Harbhajan Singh took two wickets each for Mumbai, but man-of-the-match Pollard was the decisive factor as the IPL team kept alive its slim hopes of a semifinal appearance.

Mumbai can sneak into the last four if it beats Indian rivals Bangalore and results go its way in the group.

Pollard has now hit a tournament-high 14 sixes in three innings as he destroyed Guyana’s bowling attack, sending ball after ball high over the boundary.

“I thought the batting was tremendous and Pollard was special,” Mumbai skipper Sachin Tendulkar said. “To get to this total was an incredible effort by him. Terrific bat swing and tremendous power. He can clear any ground in the world.”

Pushed up the order to No. 3, the West Indies allrounder was largely responsible for Mumbai plundering an incredible 85 runs from the last five overs, which turned the match.

“I thought he played brilliantly,” Sarwan said. “He took the game away from us and we didn’t really help ourselves with the fielding. I thought we pulled it back pretty well in the middle, but then came Kieron Pollard.”

It was a must-win match for Mumbai, which lost its first two games to be on the brink of elimination.

Opting to bat first against an inexperienced attack in overcast, and at times drizzly, conditions, Tendulkar hit 48 off 39 balls for his highest score of the tournament — but only after being dropped off consecutive balls in the outfield off Christopher Barnwell.

Having ridden his luck and stroked six fours, Tendulkar departed when he charged down the pitch to legspinner Devindra Bishoo and was stumped by Derwin Christian.

Shikhar Dhawan and Saurabh Tiwary followed as Mumbai reached 99-3 in 15 overs.

But Pollard exploded into life with sixes off the first and fifth balls of the next over. He then helped himself to two sixes and a four off Bishoo in the 17th. He smashed another three deliveries over the ropes, including a monstrous blow off Esaun Crandon that clattered into the scoreboard, before hitting another missile into the crowd at long-off off the final ball of the innings.

“The pitch was very nice,” Pollard said. “When the bowlers were trying to bang it in, it was standing up for me to play through the line of the ball and connect properly, and I did.”

Bishoo was Guyana’s best bowler with 3-34.

Guyana’s hopes of a first victory then lay with Sarwan and his partnership with Narsingh Deonarine for the third wicket.

The pair added 46 after Guyana had slipped to 45-2, but when Deonarine fell to a brilliant diving catch by Dhawan off Bravo for a promising 27, Sarwan was left to fight a one-man battle.

He had slapped six fours and a six before finally succumbing to Harbhajan for 46 off 38.

“There’s still room for improvement, especially with our bowling and fielding.” Tendulkar said.

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