Malinga's heroics help Mumbai Indians win

Mumbai Indians defended a small total of 120, denting Pune Warriors' future prospects in the IPL. This is Pune's forth-in-a-row loss.

It was good to see the Mumbai skipper Harbhajan Singh back in league with wickets. The MI spinner exploited the slow nature of the pitch to his advantage. The match swung like a pendulum after Michael Clarke and Steven Smith fell to off-spinner Harbhajan Singh and left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha by the 10th over, however it turned in Mumbai's favour with the fall of Ganguly's wicket.

The seventh wicket pair of Mithun Manhas and Bhuvneshwar Kumar needed 12 runs in the last over to take Pune past the finishing line.

Bhuvneshwar hit a boundary off Munaf Patel off the penultimate ball but they lost by a run as it could manage only two runs off the last ball. This is Mumbai Indians sixth win in the league and will stay in the third position in the table.

It was Lasith Malinga's late heroics which saw the team through. While batting, Malinga, after several misses, hit two big sixes to produce 26 vital runs for the eighth wicket for MI to set Warriors almost a run-a-ball target. Later in his last two overs, Malinga struck twice to earn himself the Man Of The Match award.