Mumbai Indians record 4th successive win
Supergiants beat struggling Royal Challengers
BANGALORE, India, April 17, (AP): Mumbai Indians beat Gujarat Lions by six wickets to record their fourth successive victory in the Indian Premier League, and Rising Pune Supergiants got off the bottom of the table with a 27-run win against struggling Royal Challengers Bangalore.
Despite losing five wickets for just three runs during their innings, Supergiants managed to score 161-8 after Royal Challengers’ skipper Virat successive deliveries, as Supergiants collapsed from 127-2 to 130-7.
It was left to Manoj Tiwary to hit a brisk 27 off 11 deliveries that included three fours and a six off Watson in the 19th over. That lifted Supergiants to a total that could be defended.
Royal Challengers are last with only one win after five matches while Supergiants has two victories from as many games.
Earlier, in Wankhede Stadium Mumbai lived up to its reputation of heavily favoring teams opting to field first after winning the toss.
Lions’ Brendon McCullum, who hit 64 off 44 balls, believed his team’s total of 176-4 was 15 runs above par against Mumbai. But the home team rode to a six-wicket victory and reached 177-4 with three balls to spare.
Mumbai captain Rohit Sharma intelligently used his spinners Harbhajan Singh (1-22) and Krunal Pandya (0-18) on a slow wicket before Dinesh Karthik blazed a quick-fire 48 off 26 balls to give Lions a reasonable total.
Mumbai stuttered early in their runchase when Praveen Kumar had Parthiv Patel caught for a duck in the first over by Jason Roy at point.
But Roy missed a sitter which should have got rid of Nitish Rana for 9 in the next over.
Rana went on to become the leading scorer in the tournament, hitting 53 off 36 balls and cashed in on the dropped catch by putting on 85 runs with Jos Buttler (26).
Despite losing both Rana and Buttler in the space of seven runs, Sharma (40 not out) and Kieron Pollard (39) took over with a 68-run stand off 42 balls.
Like Royal Challengers, Gujarat Lions also have just one win but have played one match less. to 110-80 with 4-1/2 minutes left. Harden, who along with Westbrook is a front-runner for MVP, went to the bench after that and both teams cleared their benches soon after that.
Westbrook had 22 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists, but made just six of 23 shots and had nine turnovers.
Harden also had nine assists and seven rebounds, and Patrick Beverley had a playoff career-best 21 points along with 10 rebounds for the Rockets.
Game 2 is Wednesday night in Houston.
In Washington, John Wall scored a playoff career-high 32 points and Markieff Morris added 21 in his NBA postseason debut to help Washington beat Atlanta in Game 1.
Wall scored 15 points in the third quarter and finished with 14 assists. Bradley Beal had 22 points, and the Wizards got enough from their top players to offset 25 points from Atlanta’s Dennis Schroder and 19 from Paul Millsap. Dwight Howard had 14 rebounds but just seven points.
Game 2 is Wednesday night in Washington.
Washington Wizards forward Markieff Morris (5) dunks the ball while Atlanta Hawks forward Paul Millsap (4) and Dwight Howard (8) watch during the second half in Game 1 of a first-round NBA basketball playoff series, in Washington on April 16. The Wizards won 114-107. (AP)