DURBAN, South Africa, CMC – A tidy, all-round performance from Dwayne Bravo earned him the Man-of-the-Match award, and the Mumbai Indians a tense, two-run victory over Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Champions League Twenty20 Championship yesterday.
Bravo followed-up a valuable, quick-fire 29 in Mumbai’s innings, with two wickets for 23 runs from his allotted four overs, as Bangalore failed to successfully chase 166 from their allocation of 20 overs in the 15th match of the competition at Kingsmead.
Zaheer Khan formalised the result for Mumbai, when he had Virat Kohli caught behind off the last ball of the match, after the batsmen miscued a flick and skied the ball behind the stumps to wicketkeeper Ambati Rayudu.
“It was not too bad,” said Bravo. “We needed this win to have a chance in the competition. It was a perfect opportunity for me to do something special because our aim was to win this game, and this was important.”
Kohli struck five fours and two sixes in 47 from 24 balls, and put on 63 for the fourth wicket with Rahul Dravid, whose 71 from 58 balls containing eight fours was the top score.
The victory moved Mumbai to four points – the same as the Highveld Lions of South Africa – but the Indians have completed their schedule of group matches with an inferior run rate, so they are now third in the five-team Group-B ladder.
The Lions meet the Royal Challengers in the final group match tomorrow at the Wanderers in Johannesburg to confirm, which side will join the South Australia Redbacks in the semi-finals.
Earlier, Bravo hit three fours and two sixes from 17 balls to give Mumbai a late boost, after they wobbled to 84 for five in the 13th over, following the dismissal of his compatriot Kieron Pollard for a three-ball duck caught at extra cover off Dale Steyn.
Bravo added a valuable 64 for the sixth wicket with Saurabh Tiwary before he was caught at mid-off top-edging a waist-high, full toss in the penultimate over.
Shikhar Dhawan’s 41 from 37 balls was the top score for Mumbai, and Tiwary got 38 from 30 balls.
