Jayasurya muzzles Bangalore Royal Challengers to submission

Bangalore, May 28 (UNI) Striking the ball with gay abandon, Sanath Jayasurya struck brilliant half century to help Mumbai Indians thrash Bangalore Royal Challengers by nine wickets with two overs to spare in the penultimate league match of the DLF-Indian Premier League played at M Chinnaswamy stadium here today.

Chasing a moderate target of 123 in 18 overs in the rain-shortened match, Mumbai Indians held too much of fire power with the Sri Lankan marauder in the lead and in the company of skipper Sachin Tendulkar, guided the visitors to an easy victory.

Jayasurya became the highest hitter of sixes in the League so far taking his tally to 31 including today's four towering hits over the fence. He has also hit 57 boundaries in this edition.

With this the Mumbai Indians signed off from the inaugural IPL with 14 points from as many matches. Royal Challengers, who never got going in the cash rich tournament, finished with a poor eight points in 14 matches to take the seventh spot.

The match had no significance as both the teams had been out of contention for a semi final berth as Kings XI Punjab, Rajasthan Royals, Delhi Daredevils and Chennai Super Kings have already made the grade.

Royal Challengers captain Rahul Dravid tried a new trick, introducing Anil Kumble to open the attack hoping that the ace leg spinner would use the good bounce to the host's advantage. But Jayasurya and the most accomplished Tendulkar opening the Indians' innings nothing worked for him on a cool evening.

Jayasurya went straight into overdrive and punished Kumble as the Indian Test captain gave away 16 runs in the first two overs.

Tearaway speedster Dale Steyn was the only bowler who commanded some respect from the Mumbai batsmen.

Tendulkar seemed inspired with the belligerent Sri Lankan as he too helped himself with some fine hits to the fence one and over, scoring an unbeaten 40 off 42 balls. He hit two consecutive fours craftily eluding the short square leg off Kumble in the 16th over to take Mumbai to an easy win.

Robin Uthappa who came at the fall of Jayasurya, stood out with a spectacular cover drive off Kumble and made 19 off 17 balls to take the visitors to victory without any further hick up.

Mumbai Indians raced to their first 50 off 44 balls while the second came in even quicker time, just 31 balls. With the visitors raising their 100 in the 13th over, nothing was left for the hosts to fight back.

Tendulkar and Uthappa played sensibly to take their team towards the victory.

Earlier Dilhara Fernando used the bouncy conditions claiming four wickets for just 18 runs, while West Indian all rounder Dwayne Smith claimed three wickets for 26 to leave Bangalore innings in a disarray. Fernando was later declered man of the match.

It was left to tail enders Vinay Kumar (23) and Praveen Kumar (08), who added 39 runs for the eighth wicket in just 25 balls, give some respectability to the Bangalore innings. The two joined together with Royal Challengers struggling at 83 for seven and took the score to 122.

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