IPL 7: Devils feast on Mumbai Indians

SHARJAH: The Mumbai Indians dugout appears far more threatening than the playing eleven so far in the IPL. There's Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble, Robin Singh, Jonty Rhodes and John Wright among others devising the team's strategies. On Sunday, Ricky Ponting was also back with them in an advisory role.
The players taking the field have looked almost listless.They've just not been able to put bat on ball, regardless of the talent they have at their disposal.
The much harried Delhi Daredevils, who had lost their previous two matches and were looking for a turnaround, got to feast on the struggling Mumbai Indians, returning to winning ways with a six-wicket triumph at the Sharjah Cricket Ground on Sunday.
The Mumbai Indians swapped their batting order, allowing Michael Hussey to drop down in the line-up and opened with skipper Rohit Sharma instead. The change didn't quite help and an early run-out saw Sharma return to the dressing room. It meant another poor start and the game was to follow a similar pattern to the previous three contests.
Rohit won the toss for MI and elected to bat on a wicket that was fast and bouncy. The skipper's early dismissal though once again saw the rest of the batting order collapse and Hussey, batting at No. 5, couldn't come into his own yet again.
To Delhi's credit, extremely impressive spells from Shahbaaz Nadeem and Wayne Parnell, and some very important dismissals off Jaidev Unadkat's bowling (Corey Anderson and Hussey), put them in top gear early on in the contest.
The 125-run target set by Mumbai Indians wasn't a very easy one to chase, as Pollard and Nadeem explained later. "The fact that Delhi didn't chase it in 15-odd overs and it came down to the last over showed that it wasn't an easy wicket to bat," Pollard said. Nadeem added that the wicket in Sharjah and Dubai, where Delhi played last, were "very different" to the one in Abu Dhabi, and scoring runs wasn't easy.
Yet, the Daredevils applied themselves better in the chase, beginning cautiously and spacing their innings in 20 overs with enough clarity to win with seven deliveries remaining.
The Mumbai Indians bowled well, as they have on almost every occasion having to defend pitiful totals. Lasith Malinga was once again the most impressive, picking two wickets for 17 runs in his four overs. Spinners Harbhajan Singh and Pragyan Ojha complemented Malinga's effort and Delhi lost two quick wickets as the chase continued.
However, the 40 runs scored by Murali Vijay at the top and Kevin Pietersen's 26 not out in the middleorder were enough to see them through. Unlike other matches where dropped catches have been a common sight, this one turned out to be different with Dinesh Karthik's miss that reprieved CM Gautam off Unadkat being the only dropped chance.
Mumbai Indians have some serious work to do to come back in the tournament now and as Pollard says "The team's trying different things to see how it can pull itself" out of this mess. The Daredevils, meanwhile, are back with some momentum.