The Royal Challengers Bangalore routed the Mumbai Indians by nine wickets thanks to half centuries by Jacques Kallis and Robin Uthappa, to record their fourth win and get to eight points in the tournament. Mumbai are left at the fifth position with seven.
The Mumbai Indians batted first after winning the toss, but were jolted early when debutant Dillon du Preez got rid of Sachin Tendulkar, Ajinkya Rahane and J.P. Duminy in the span of a couple of overs to leave them reeling at 23/2 in the sixth over.
Dwayne Bravo joined Sanath Jayasuriya, but the duo was very cautious to begin with. The boundaries rarely came – du Preez conceded 14 in one of his overs – and the Indians reached 53/3 in ten overs.
The 13th over accounted for ten overs and Jayasuriya completed his fifty before getting out to Reolf van der Merwe, but it was only in the last three overs that the acceleration really came. 18th over went for 14, the 19th for 18 and then the 20th for 16 runs to put Mumbai Indians back into reckoning in the match.
The Royal Challengers needed 150 to win the match, and came out all guns blazing. Wasim Jaffer got out early, but in the company of Robin Uthappa, Kallis began to grow in confidence. Lasith Malinga was hit for an early six and then cut again for another maximum, while Abhishek Nayar was laced to the boundary twice in the same over within the first six overs.
Malinga did bowl a maiden to Uthappa, and yet, the score was 51/0 in six overs.
Kallis went into his shell after the fielding restrictions were off, but the runs did keep coming regularly. Uthappa ensured that the dot balls were followed by a boundary every over, or there were enough singles to push the asking rate back.
If the Mumbai Indians thought that the strategic time out would get them some wickets, they were sadly mistaken. Tendulkar did everything possible to break the stand, but the runs kept leaking. Mumbai was delivered a further body-blow when Zaheer Khan had to leave the field with a nasty looking shoulder injury after diving to stop the ball.
Kallis got to his fifty, and this was very soon followed by Uthappa, as the Royal Challengers cruised to a win with 11 balls to spare.
Kallis won the man-of-the-match for his unbeaten fifty and the tidy spell of bowling during the Mumbai inning.