Delhi Daredevils dissected Mumbai Indians with clinical precision in Mumbai on Monday to notch up their third win of the season and climb to the top of the Indian Premier League table, after having finished at the bottom last season. Their bowlers justified skipper Virender Sehwag's decision to bowl first on a wicket offering steep bounce, sending Mumbai crashing to 92 all out, before the batsmen finished the job with seven wickets in hand and overs to spare.
Chasing 93, Sehwag led the way with a calm and composed 32 off 36 balls as Delhi knocked off the runs with minimum fuss. The loss of Naman Ojha, Kevin Pietersen and Sehwag didn't allow Mumbai back into the game, as Mahela Jayawardene and Ross Taylor finished off things with ease.
Earlier, Harbhajan (33) and Rohit Sharma (29) were the only two Mumbai players to get into double figures, albeit in contrasting styles. While the skipper was assured and connected well with the ball for five boundaries and a six, Rohit seemed be in a hurry to get back the dug- out, throwing his bat at good deliveries and surviving a couple of topedges.
Wickets were shared by all five specialist bowlers for Delhi, with Umesh Yadav returning the best figures of two for 11, while Man of the Match Shahbaz Nadeem took two for 16 and Irfan Pathan was extremely frugal, finishing with one for Mumbai made three changes to their team, bringing in Davy Jacobs, RP Singh and Aussie pacer Clint McKay in place of James Franklin, Tirumalasetti Suman and, surprisingly, Lasith Malinga.
Jacobs was included due to Mumbai's opening troubles, which have been a headache since Sachin Tendulkar went down with a finger injury in the opening match against Chennai Super Kings. But the experiment failed spectacularly. After a maiden over from Irfan first up, in which Jacobs tried a few ugly hoicks, left-arm spinner Nadeem cleaned him up for duck. Levi soon followed suit, bowled by a Nadeem arm-ball, to leave Mumbai at five for two in the fourth over, before Rohit and Ambati Rayudu put together a small stand to get some life back into the nearcapacity crowd.
The introduction of local boy Ajit Agarkar into the attack proved lucky for the Daredevils as a mindless piece of running saw Rayudu and Rohit at the same end, and despite a misdirected throw from point, Sehwag had enough time to collect the ball and throw it back to the wicketkeeper, who effected the run- out.
Kieron Pollard tried to slog Umesh Yadav over the covers but ended up giving an easy catch to Taylor, before extra bounce from Agarkar did Rohit in as he sent a topedge down the same fielder's throat at deep square- leg. Dinesh Karthik also fell trying to pull a length ball, and Mumbai were reduced to 44 for six in 10.2 overs, before Harbhajan and Clint McKay put on 34 in just over four overs.
