The slog and stare

In a bid to pick up wickets after Mumbai Indians lost three, Gambhir, besides placing himself at silly point, had a slip and a gully in the seventh over bowled by Shakib Al Hasan. Kieron Pollard played out two deliveries but Gambhir wasn't done.

He kept Morkel from the other end for his fourth and final over, despite the bowler showing signs of exhaustion. Gambhir again placed himself at short leg when Pollard was on strike. Morkel, however, responded brilliantly, giving away just two runs and finishing with 1 for 27.

Rohit Sharma had started to get a measure of Sunil Narine with two fours in his first nine balls. Both fours were through the off side, but Rohit wasn't ready for what was about to come his way.

Narine trotted in and bowled a peach of a delivery that could be described as a straighter one or even a legcutter. But the curve that the ball took, for perhaps less than an inch, was breathtaking. Rohit committed to play on the middle stump but the ball straightened ever so slightly and hit the off stump. Narine pumped his fist as his captain stormed in to celebrate.

The Mumbai batsmen were struggling to find boundaries regularly. Hardik Pandya was fluent from early on in his innings and by the time he got into a powerful groove by hitting four consecutive fours off Umesh Yadav, it was clear Mumbai had much to rely on this young batsman.

In the 18th over, Pandya took his front foot out of the line of a Narine delivery and lifted him towards midwicket. It ended up as a huge six, his first of the innings.

Robin Uthappa saw Gambhir hitting a boundary off Vinay Kumar's first ball, so he tried to get on top of his Karnataka captain. He went for a slog over midwicket but only got an inside edge. He missed another slog the next ball. Vinay stared at him while Gambhir, who had walked up to Uthappa after the previous ball, stayed back at his end.

Vinay pitched the fifth ball short, but Uthappa, cleverly, stayed back and smacked over midwicket for a four. A little battle won by the batsman.

Pandya thanked the heavens, quite literally, after J Suchith got one to dip and dismiss Gambhir at the end of the 11th over. Pandya had, of course, dropped the same batsman on 36 the previous ball.

In the same over in which Yusuf Pathan had slammed a six over midwicket, Gambhir carted one past midwicket for four before he chipped one more, this time to the right of Pandya, who ran towards the ball but couldn't hold on to the catch. The drop meant the Knight Riders captain moved to 38. But next ball, Gambhir missed Suchith's delivery. The camera panned to Pandya who looked upwards in relief.