Mumbai Indians continued to make a bold bid for the playoff place by notching their third successive victory.
Despite putting a scrappy performance, Mumbai managed to upstage Delhi Daredevils by 15 runs at the Wankhede Stadium for their sixth win and swell their points tally to 12.
They will now have to defeat Rajasthan Royals by a big margin in their final league match at the Wankhede – where they have won three of their four matches this season – to qualify.
Put into bat, Mumbai frittered a superb start by openers Lendl Simmons (35 off 25 balls) and Michael Hussey (56 off 33 balls) to be bowled out for 173 in the final over.
They were in a strong position at 140-2 in the 15th over but lost the last eight wickets for the addition of just 33 runs.
Chasing 174, Delhi never got any real momentum going. Jean-Paul Duminy (45 not out off 29 balls) and Manoj Tiwary (41 off 31 balls) kept them alive with an 85-run fourthwicket partnership, but 32 from the last two overs proved beyond their reach.
Marchant de Lange and Jasprit Bumhah bowled two excellent overs to close out a narrow win for Mumbai. Delhi, as they have so often done this season, batted pretty well without ever giving their opponents a real scare.
They got off the blocks quickly enough, with Kevin Pietersen (44 off 31 balls) striking three fours off de Lange in the second over of the chase, and were 43 for no loss after five overs.
The next five overs, however, brought them only 19 runs and cost them three wickets. Pietersen admitted it has beenfrustrating to deal with such close defeats.
He said: “The frustrating thing is that we can get so close but can’t get over the finish line. When we keep losing and get so close, we form bad habits. “But we’re going to fight till the death, all the way through and then we’ll see where we go next season.”
