Hardik Pandya’s sensational knock, supported by an uncannily slow knock by Kieron Pollard, and a sensational performance by a reliable bowling unit; meant Mumbai Indians signed off their home leg of the Indian Premier League’s eighth edition, with a thrilling victory against defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders.

The five-run victory in their penultimate league game meant Mumbai Indians soared from the sixth into the fourth position in the points table, and took a giant step towards making the cut into the Playoffs.

For 29 off the 40 overs in the game – 15 in Mumbai Indian’s batting essay, and 14 into the second innings – Kolkata Knight Riders were in control of the game. But, the Mumbai Indians conquered the death overs in both the innings to walk away with two valuable points.

At the end of the 14 overs into the chase, Knight Riders were placed at 116 for three. With 56 required off 36 balls, and Yusuf Pathan and Shakib Al Hasan scoring at will, it needed a special spark to get Mumbai Indians back into the game. Vinay Kumar gave the crucial breakthrough, forcing Shakib to top-edge a pull for Pandya to complete a catch running in from deep square leg.

In the next over, the ever-reliable Lasith Malinga got rid of the danger man Andre Russell with a trademark slower ball. But Suryakumar Yadav then went after Vinay, hitting him for three fours, in the 16th over. It was Mitchell McClenaghan’s turn to pull things back for MI, and the left-arm pacer did it by trapping Yadav on the boundary, deep on the on-side.

With 21 required off 12 balls, Yusuf Pathan had Piyush Chawla for company; and then captain Rohit Sharma decided to bowl Malinga out. Despite being hit for a six by Yusuf that fetched the allrounder his fifty, Malinga conceded just nine runs.

With 12 runs to defend off the last over, Rohit threw the ball to Pollard. And the man who had till then bowled just 6.4 runs justified the faith shown in him by his skipper. Once Pollard got rid of Yusuf off the first ball with a slow ball, the job was half done. And then he continued to bowl slower balls for the rest of the over, conceding just five runs courtesy a misfield and a wide ball.

However, the victory was set up by Pandya and Pollard in the last five overs, as the duo amassed 72 runs in the last five overs to ensure Mumbai Indians had a par total on the board. Placed at 99 for four, Pollard managed to hit a six off Sunil Narine off the first ball of the 16th ball. Then on, with Pollard struggling to get the big hits going, Pandya took the lead.

Pandya started the charge with four successive boundaries off Umesh Yadav’s tearaway pace in the 17th over and then continued with a six off Narine in the next, followed by two fours and a six off Russell in the penultimate over.

Such was Pandya’s onslaught that 50 off the 72 runs scored in the last five overs were scored by the young allrounder, while Pollard managed 17, with five extras. Those 50 runs turned out to be gold in the end, as it helped Mumbai Indians put the Knight Riders under pressure from the word go, and eventually hang on for a memorable victory.

Over to Hyderabad for the last league game on Sunday!