Mumbai Indians maintain supremacy after the initial debacle in the second match, but momentum regains and MI beat Rajasthan Royals.
Pollard has finally got the going tough for the oppositions and seems to fit in groove for the Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede stadium in Mumbai on Wednesday. Mumbai Indians win the match against the Rajasthan Royals. RR Captain Rahul Dravid won the toss and elected to field, in the twelfth match played in IPL 5. Sachin was out sitting in the MI box. MI opened the innings with fairly a good start. But the fireworks started as Keiron Pollard slammed the ball all across the field and made 64 runs with six boundaries and 4 sixes. Rayudu equally dominated with his blistering knock of 47 runs posting the tournament’s highest total with 197 after losing six wickets. In the bowling front Singh and Hogg claimed two wickets each for the RR.
RR came up to bat with a total which was really impossible to catch up with. Dravid at this point would have realized the wrong decision for choosing to field. Initially two wickets collapsed for just seven runs on board. However later Rehane took charge along with O Shah and gave a solid partnership. Rehane scored 40 runs and Shah was 76 runs. In spite such magnificent efforts others succumbed and in the end RR could only post 170 19.4 overs after losing all wickets. The bowling honors for the MI goes to Pollard and Patel who claimed four wickets each. Pollard was an indomitable force for the MI and was declared the Man of the Match.
Patronage Declining: Indian Premier League (IPL 5) is proving to be more entertaining but patronage seems to have declined over the last season. The cumulative number of people who tuned in to watch the first six games was 90.1 million, down from 101.77 million last year, according to TAM Sports, a division of Tam Media Research, a leading television ratings agency in India. Television Viewer Ratings (TVR) were down 18.7% as a result, with the opening six games posting an average TVR of 3.76 compared to 4.63 last season (TVR is a time-weighted figure which accounts for time spent by viewers in addition to the number of viewers).IPL had a record of increasing fans right from inception till last season. (With inputs from internet: AarKay)
