April 7, 2017 by admin

Smith continues to torment Indians

Pune, Rising Pune Supergiant beat Mumbai Indians by seven wickets, riding on half centuries from captain Steven Smith (84 not out) and Ajinkya Rahane (60), in their IPL match here today.
Chasing 185 to win, Pune overhauled the target with a ball to spare in a tense finish. After three singles in Kieron Pollard’s final over, Smith, with 11 needed off three balls, smashed two successive sixes to seal their first win of this edition.
Smith smashed seven fours and three sixes from 54 balls for his unbeaten 84 while Rahane hit 60 off 34 balls with the help of six fours and three sixes as the duo raised 58 runs for the second wicket to set up the win.
Earlier, put in to bat, Mumbai scored 184/8 on the back of Hardik Pandya’s late heroics. Pandya (35 off 15 balls) stunned the home crowd as he hit four sixes and a boundary to take 30 runs from the final over bowled by Ashok Dinda.
South African Imran Tahir (3/28), who was unsold in the IPL auction and drafted in the Pune team as a late replacement, triggered a top-order collapse after Mumbai’s rollicking start.
Mumbai did not have any substantial partnership after the opening-wicket stand of 45 between Parthiv Patel (19) and Jos Buttler (38).
Tahir cleaned up Patel with his second ball of the match, giving Pune the first breakthrough after Mumbai had scored 41 runs in the first four overs. He dealt a body blow to Mumbai in his next over by sending back captain Rohit Sharma (3 off 7 balls).
Just two balls later, Tahir dismissed Buttler.
But Pandya’s late flourish negated Tahir’s fine effort as Mumbai rattled up 64 runs in the last five overs.