Mumbai– West Indies limited overs opener Dwayne Smith extended his rich vein of form in the Indian Premier League to help Mumbai Indians brush aside Sunil Narine's Kolkata Knight Riders by 65 runs here yesterday.
The right-hander made a patient 47 off 53 deliveries with seven boundaries as Mumbai, opting to bat first at the Wankhede Stadium, tallied 170 for six off their 20 overs.
Smith put on 93 for the first wicket with Indian legend Sachin Tendulkar who top scored with 48 from 28 balls.
Both departed in the space of four balls, however, with Tendulkar bowled by Rajat Bhatia at the end of the 13th over and Smith holing out to long on off left-arm spinner Iqbal Abdulla moments later in the next over.
Big-hitting Kieron Pollard failed with four while Narine went wicket-less from his four overs of off-spin.
In reply, Knight Riders' run chase never got off the ground and they collapsed for 105 in the 19th over.
Mumbai are second in the standings on 16 points behind Dwayne Bravo's Chennai Super Kings on 18 points.
The win came easy against the defending champions. It was the kind of win that coaches love: almost everything went to plan. They won the toss, batted first, Tendulkar and Dinesh Karthik got them a target, and their superior attack shut Knight Riders out. Only a faulty light tower and some good fielding towards the end of Mumbai's innings posed any resistance.
It was all one-way traffic from the moment Tendulkar smacked Ryan McLaren for five successive fours, all to different areas of the ground, in the fourth over. By the time the power failure countered the Tendulkar blaze, he had reached 29 off 17 balls.
The lights came back on for Tendulkar to score 19 more off 11 more balls. Smith failed to reach a run a ball, but by the time they fell, Mumbai had reached 99 in the 14th over. Some good fielding - Eoin Morgan's catch at deep midwicket, lobbing the ball up, stepping over the boundary and coming back in to complete the catch; and two run-outs–reduced Mumbai to 144 for 6 in the 19th over.
Karthik, though, kept scoring from one end. Most striking was his unsettling of Sunil Narine. He used sweeps to hit Narine off his length, and took 20 off the 11 balls he faced from Narine. Mitchell Johnson, as if to give a sample of what was to follow, smacked the last ball of the innings for a straight six.
Ten minutes later, he began swinging the ball at a high pace. An inside edge saved Manvinder Bisla first ball, and then next hit him high on the thigh pad. Two balls later, Gautam Gambhir played for the non-existent swing, and was bowled for a duck. Jacques Kallis and Bisla looked to revive the chase, but Pragyan Ojha had Bisla stumped just after the Powerplay.
Kallis soon fell to Harbhajan Singh, who had dropped him earlier. And when Eoin Morgan sliced Abu Nechim to point in the 13th over, the game was virtually over, just like Knight Riders' campaign.
results
Mumbai Indians 170 for 6 (Tendulkar 48, Smith 47) v Kolkata Knight Riders 105 (Harbhajan 3-27, Johnson 2-13) by 65 runs
Rajasthan Royals 155 for 1 (Rahane 63*, Dravid 53) beat Delhi Daredevils 154 for 4 (Rohrer 64*) by nine wickets