MUMBAI THUMP BANGALORE

MUMBAI: Kieron Pollard produced a splendid performance battling through an hamstring injury to seal a berth in the finals for the Mumbai Indians in emphatic fashion.

Pollard struck a 13-ball 33 to help his side make a splendid recovery from early jolt in company of Saurabh Tiwary (52 not out) to post 184 for five after batting first and then took 3 wickets for 17 runs as the home side restricted Bangalore to 149 for nine in the first semifinal at DY Patil Stadium.

Ross Taylor top-scored for Banaglore with a 30-ball 31. Jacques Kallis (11), Rahul Dravid (23), Kevin Pietersen (19), Robin Uthappa (26) failed to carry on after promising starts.

Lasith Malinga was the pick of the bowlers with the RCB batsmen struggling to put him away. He took two Bangalore wickets and conceding 24 runs from his four overs. Harbhajan Singh took two crucial wickets giving away 44 runs from his four overs.

At the end it was a comfortable win for Mumbai, who had topped the league tables with 20 points, the only point of concern was that captain Tendulkar, who is the top scorer in the tournament, suffered right hand webbing split while taking a dropped catch of Dravid in the fourth over.

Two overs later, the West Indian put Mumbai in complete control of the match by removing Manish Pandey for just five with the batsman holing out to JP Duminy near the boundary while trying to hoist a Pollard slow ball out of the park.

Harabhajan sealed the fate of the match in Mumbai's favour by cleaning up Parveen Kumar's furniture with a straight and full delivery which the batsman missed completely.

The asking rate over 13 after the 15th over, Taylor was the only ray of hope but the New Zealander did not find any support from the lower order batsmen as Bangalore ended at 149 for nine in their 20 overs.

Earlier, Tiwary struck a breezy unbeaten 31-ball 52 while Pollard used his long handle to telling effect to guide Mumbai Indians to a challenging 184 for five.

Mumbai lost in-form skipper Tendulkar (9) and other opener Shikhar Dhawan (12) cheaply but they recovered splendidly thanks to some sensible batting by Tiwary and Ambati Rayudu (40 in 38 balls) and through some big hitting by Pollard towards the end.

Abhishek Nayar (22) and Rayudu first steadied the innings and then the latter put on 67 runs in 49 balls with Tiwary for the fourth wicket to take Mumbai close to the 150 mark in the 18th over.