Cricket: "Abdullah's heroics in tense last over helps punjab win a tense match"

Match No 20: Kings XI Punjab Vs Mumbai Indians

Kings XI Punjab defeated Mumbai Indians in a tense finsih by 3 runs here at Kingsmead, Durban. Duminy's fifty coudnt save mumbai from the defeat.

Kings XI Punjab won the toss and elected to bat first. They had relatively slow start and then lost their openers in within 5 overs when their score was reading 18 for 2 of 4.3 overs. Sangakkara was running out of partners as the wickets kept falling but sangakkara made sure that he stayed till the end and get punjab a decent score. Sangakkara scored 45 of 44 balls with 2 fours and 1 six and in whole punjabs inning only sangakka scored more than 20 runs. Such were the batting woes of punjab. But with the help of Sangakkara they scored a fighting 119 of their 20 overs. For Mumbai Indians Malinga had a excellent spell with 2 wickets against his name.

Mumbai Indians had a horrible start when lost Jayasuriya, Tendulkar and Dhawan to Pathan, Malik and Abdullah respectively with score reading 12 for 3 in 4 overs. What Sangakkara did for Punjab, Duminy followed the same and at one end he fixed himself up and scored runs accordingly, but he was running out of partners as wickets kept falling at regular intervals. Bravo and Nayar scored 15 each and took mumbai to their target. But once harbhajan was out for 6 things changed dratically but still Duminy was there in the center. Yuvraj handed over the ball to Abdullah and he delivered what he was said to and didnt give any thing for Duminy to free his arm. Duminy coudnt save mumbai from defeat when he was eventually out for 59 of 63 balls with 4 fours. Mumbai could manage just 116 and loose the match by 3 runs.

Man of the Matchwas awarded to KC Sangakkara for his super 45 of 44 balls with 2 fours and 1 six.

Scores: Kings XI Punjab 119 for 8 (Sangakkara 45*, Malinga 2-12) beat Mumbai Indians 116 for 7 (Duminy 59, Abdulla 2-19) by three runs