Mumbai continue to repair their season

Mumbai Indians continued to repair damage caused by a poor start to the season, winning their third game in a row to add to the mid-table pile-up of teams on eight or nine points. Kings XI Punjab, after a seventh defeat in nine matches, were all but out of the tournament, languishing at the bottom at least four points behind the rest.

Mumbai's push to a 23-run victory was begun by their openers Parthiv Patel and Lendl Simmons, who set up the score of 172 with a partnership of 111 in 12.2 overs. Though they did not have a strong finish to the innings because Kings XI's seamers found the blockhole regularly, Mumbai had done enough to challenge a struggling batting order. David Miller posed a brief threat but his form was nowhere near enough to overcome Lasith Malinga and Mitchell McClenaghan's nous at the death.

Kings XI suffered another failure despite revamping the team that had been crushed in Delhi. They made four changes, bringing in M Vijay because Manan Vohra was sick, and replacing Shaun Marsh, Thisara Perera and Shardul Thakur with Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Johnson and Karanveer Singh.

Johnson and Maxwell, however, had extremely poor games. Mumbai were 28 for 0 in four overs when Johnson came on to bowl, only to be taken apart by Parthiv. His first over contained a ramp for six, and a flick and cover drive for boundaries. Maxwell could have ended Parthiv's innings on 22 but he goofed up a simple run-out opportunity. Parthiv went on to punish Johnson again, scoring 28 off nine deliveries in the bowler's first two overs.

Simmons had started smoothly too, glancing several deliveries from Sandeep Sharma and Anureet Singh off his pads to collect boundaries to fine leg. Mumbai were 72 for 0 after eight overs when George Bailey tried to rouse his men with a pep talk during the strategic time-out, but his words were unheeded. Sandeep mis-fielded at point and allowed a boundary in the very next over, later in the piece Virender Sehwag dropped a simple skier and Vijay allowed another boundary.

Parthiv got to his 50 - four of his six IPL half-centuries are against Kings XI - off 32 balls, and then smashed Maxwell on to the sightscreen. Soon after Parthiv fell, Simmons brought up his fifty, off 38 balls.

Mumbai had plenty of wickets in hand for a late surge but it never came. With Johnson returning for two accurate overs and Sandeep and Anureet bowling a succession of yorkers, only 49 runs were scored off the last five overs, as Mumbai fell well short of the 200 that looked so achievable when the openers had been batting.

Kings XI possess a formidable batting line-up but all their guns are misfiring at present. Closing his face too early to Malinga's first ball, Sehwag was caught in the point region for the second game in a row.

Walking in at No. 3 was Maxwell, who was making a comeback to the side. He played seven balls carefully before reverse-sweeping the eighth awkwardly over slip for a boundary. He tried to repeat the shot next ball but holed out to short third man, giving J Suchith a match-turning wicket.

Kings XI never really ignited the chase. They needed 100 off ten overs but while Miller was around there was an outside chance. Mumbai had held their aces back though, and Rohit Sharma was able to call on Malinga and McClenaghan to bowl five out of the last six overs. With 68 runs to get off 36 balls, and not one batsman finding fluency, Kings XI did not even get close.