The match was neatly poised in the chase with 71 needed off last seven overs. Mumbai had just recovered from a mini wobble where they had lost Nitish Rana and Jos Buttler (26) in quick succession. With concerns mounting over Rohit Sharma’s form, this was his chance to guide the team home. Rohit played a sensible innings of an unbeaten 29-ball 40 while Pollard smashed his way to 39 off 23 to create an easy passage to the win.

Lions had been put under pressure throughout the game but did well to absorb it and fight their way through. However, Mumbai Indians bossed the last seven overs to snatch the win.

Nitish Rana has been the find of the IPL 2017 so far. Two half-centuries in the tournament has helped him become the highest run-getter after 16 games this season. After the failure against Royal Challengers Bangalore, Rana gave Mumbai the perfect platform to launch an assault in the end.

Rana walked in in the very first over after Praveen Kumar dismissed Parthiv Patel for a duck. He was dropped by Jason Roy, when on 9, off the bowling of Basil Thampi. The score was 11 for 1 at that stage. By the time Rana was dismissed in the 10th over, the score had swelled to 85, with Rana contributing to 53 off those.

On a dry Wankhede surface, Lions had lost Dwayne Smith early after being asked to bat. Both Brendon McCullum and Suresh Raina found it hard to get going as Mumbai made a good start with the ball. That’s when McCullum’s resilience came to the fore. While Raina continued to chug along, McCullum collected the crucial boundaries to take the score to 46 for 1 at the end of the powerplay. It was then that the former New Zealand captain gave the inning the much-needed impetus even as he lost Raina from the other end.

He took on Harbhajan Singh and Lasith Malinga while Ishan Kishan, who walked in at No. 4, struggled against some quality bowling. McCullum stroked a 44-ball 64 before he was bowled by Lasith Malinga in the 14th over.

The scorecard at that stage read 99 for 3 and there was plenty of work left to be done considering the chasing capabilities of Mumbai. Dinesh Karthik has been exceptional for the franchise so far and carried on with his good form, smashing an unbeaten 26-ball 48. What stood out from Karthik was that he was able to take runs off the bowling of Jasprit Bumrah and Malinga, propelling the team to a very competitive total.

Malinga conceded 51 runs, the most he has given away in any IPL game, from his four overs for his one wicket while Bumrah leaked 45 runs from his four overs. That’s 96 runs from eight overs from bowlers who are accustomed to bowling at the death and have done it considerably well. This also highlights how crucial Karthik’s effort was as he helped the team collect 41 runs in the last three overs.

Lions will return to home comforts after the loss and will take on Royal Challengers Bangalore on April 18 in an evening clash. Mumbai, on the other hand, will travel to Indore to take on Kings XI Punjab on April 20. – TOI

Warner’s 55 not out saw Australia home with almost 25 overs to spare after the West Indies earlier collapsed from 50 for one to 116 all out from 32.3 overs.

Australia then wasted little time in getting to the modest target, Warner anchoring the effort to ensure a victory that was never in doubt despite the loss of three wickets for seven runs with the end in sight.

Spinners Sunil Narine, with two wickets in one over, and Sulieman Benn caused the discomfort but it was not enough to save the hosts.

The emphatic victory earned Australia a bonus point to move ahead of the West Indies in the three-team standings before Tuesday’s final game at Providence against South Africa.

“Our batting is a real concern,” said West Indies coach Phil Simmons.

“The bowlers and fielding side are doing a great job but we need to get it together with the bat for the next two matches in St Kitts.”

Boosted by a four-wicket win in the tournament-opener against the South Africans at the same venue two days earlier, the West Indies plummeted back down to earth at the feet of the World Cup-holders, whose frontline spinners Nathan Lyon and Adam Zampa did the bulk of the damage with three wickets apiece after the usual effective opening burst from Mitchell Starc. “I really enjoyed it out there on that pitch,” Zampa enthused after his performance.

“South Africa will be a big challenge though on Tuesday with so many quality batsmen.”

Playing his first international match for more than six months after being sidelined by injury, the left-arm fast bowler breached the defences of openers Andre Fletcher and Johnson Charles to finish with figures of two for 37 from nine overs.

He showed signs of rustiness in delivering five wides and a no-ball, however his lethal pace proved more than a handful for the West Indies top order.

Starc’s tally of ODI wickets is now at 92 in his 47th match and should he take eight more before the end of this competition he will eclipse Pakistan’s Saqlain Mustaq for the record as the fastest to 100 wickets in terms of matches played in this format of the international game.

Charles topscored with a chancy 22 while all-rounder Carlos Brathwaite was last out for 21, Aaron Finch taking the catch at long-on to give Zampa his third wicket.

Notwithstanding the turgid surface, the home batsmen contributed to their swift demise with a succession of poor shots, exemplified by Darren Bravo’s loose cover-drive at seamer Mitchell Marsh which offered a straightforward catch to Zampa at cover.

Lyon, the experienced off-spinner, had an almost instant impact in disposing of Marlon Samuels and Kieron Pollard off successive deliveries.

Sri Lanka lost to West Indies on Wednesday and to share the two-match series played for the Hero Cup one-all.

Sri Lanka are the reigning World T20 champs having won the final in Bangladesh against India last year.

Malinga who led Sri Lanka to that memorable win said, “Everybody likes to win but more than the result we have to look at how we can build a strong team of 15 players to defend our world T20 title in India.

“That’s why we tried out several youngsters in the two games. While in the process of experimenting we will suffer losses but what is important more than anything else is that we need to pick a strong squad of players to defend the title,” he said.

West Indies captain Darren Sammy said the key to beating Sri Lanka was the constant bowling changes they made that resulted in Sri Lanka being unable to build partnerships that was necessary during a run chase.

Sri Lanka chasing a target of 163 were bundled out for 139 to lose by 23 runs. “They didn’t get used to any particular bowler. The plan was to give one-over spells to the bowlers and it worked,” said Sammy.

“We kept on picking wickets every time they looked like building a partnership that was the key for us.

“When we played the final here we scored 130-something and defended it – that was a reminder for the guys when we went into field,” Sammy said. “We had a good start. We controlled our play. They didn’t get off to a flyer.”

“(Lasith) Malinga hit a lot of his yorkers and so did (Nuwan) Kulasekara. They bowled really well at the end of the innings. The work done by (Johnson) Charles and (Andre) Fletcher at the top gave us that cushion – even if they bowled some good overs,” he said.

West Indies opening pair put on 62 off 6.2 overs that set the tone for their final total.

Sammy was extremely happy to see his team end their tour of Sri Lanka on a winning note after having gone without a win in any of their last seven matches. “It’s good to end the series on a winning note. You could see the difference after playing the first game which we still thought we could have won,” said Sammy.

“But coming from a long break from T20 international shows how quickly you could learn. You could see it was a much professional effort out there.

The likes of (Dwayne) Bravo who was man of the match, (Kieron) Pollard, the senior guys stepped up. The past score here was 150, we got 30 more and we were able to defend it,” he said.

For this series West Indies were without two of their experienced T20 players Chris Gayle and Lendl Simmons who were both injured.