Kings XI Punjab headed by Yuvraj Singh registered their first ever victory in the IPL Cricket, earlier being defeated in the last 2 matches. The Mumbai Indians headed by the stand-in skipper Harbhajan Singh faced their third defeat in row. The batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar was ruled out in this match as well, due to his groin injury. His absence was sure negativity for his team and a plus for the opponent team – Kings XI Punjab.

Mumbai Indians won the toss and elected to field first. Kings XI Punjab started their Innings thru their openers K. Goel and IK Pathan who failed to score convincing runs. Yuvraj Singh also failed to score as expected from a Team’s captain. Sangakkara played an excellent Innings by scoring 94 runs off 56 balls (13 boundaries and 1 sixer). Harbhajan Singh claimed 3 wickets; Nehra and Kulkarni picked 2 wickets each. 1 wicket was claimed by S. Pollock. At the end of 20 overs, Kings XI Punjab scored a total of 182 runs for all out.

Chasing the target of 183 runs, the Mumbai Indians started with a stumbling Innings. The heavyweight Jayasuriya was dismissed for a single run. Ronchi was dismissed for a meager 11 runs. Robin Uthappa, DJ Bravo and Pollock made 21, 23 and 22 runs respectively which were insufficient for their team’s target. After these players’ wickets, the match was controlled by the opponent Team. At the end of 20 overs, Mumbai Indians scored 116 runs for the fall of 9 wickets. Kings XI Punjab won the match by 66 runs. Sangakkara was declared the “Man of the Match”.

At the end of the match, there seemed to be a controversy between Sreesanth and Harbhajan Singh. Sources say Harbhajan Singh allegedly slapped Sreesanth in response to an offensive remark. Sreesanth was spotted crying and appeared to be broken. It seems later Harbhajan Singh did apologize to Sreesanth in his dressing room and both the players had settled to normal. Cricket is a gentlemen’s game and this sort of behaviors will really tarnish the spirit of the game.

Posted on April 26th, 2008 by Cricket
Filed under: IPL Cricket