Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag walked out in the middle on a pleasant afternoon, but unlike in the World Cup, they were not padded up to open rather they were there to toss as rival captains. Delhi opted to bat first after winning the toss, but were destroyed by Malinga, and Mumbai chased down the modest target without much fuss.
Sehwag carted Harbhajan, who opened the bowling, for a massive six on the fourth ball. The other explosive opener, David Warner was yorked magnificently by Malinga in the next over. Poor Unmukt Chand barely survived a ball before Malinga disturbed his furniture for another duck. Tendulkar then removed Sehwag through a direct hit to reduce Delhi to 27 for 3.
It was a body blow as despite good hands by Naman Ojha 29 (30b, 2×4, 1×6) and Venugopal Rao 26 (25b, 3×4), Delhi were bowled out for a paltry 95 in the 18th over. Malinga came back to rock the lower order too to finish with stunning figures of 5 for 13, four of them were bowled.
After Ashok Dinda opened with a tight over, Delhi showed their will to fight when Morne Morkel clean-bowled Davy Jacobs in the next. Tendulkar along with Ambati Rayudu took the score to 31 after he was dropped by Sehwag on 6. Rayudu was brilliantly run out by Warner with a direct hit for 14. This was all that Delhi could get as both Tendulkar and Rohit Sharma carried Mumbai home with more than 3 overs to spare. Tendulkar remained not out on 46 (50b, 3×4, 1×6) while Sharma made unbeaten 27 off 30 balls. Mumbai won comfortably by 8 wickets to start their campaign in style.
Mumbai 99/2 (Tendulkar 46*, Morkel 1/29) beat Delhi 95 (N Ojha 29, Malinga 5/13) by 8 wickets
Man of the match: Lasith Malinga
Published in SportPulse.net
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