Rajasthan bid farewell to play-offs

Deccan Chargers knocked Rajasthan Royals out of the IPL by inflicting on them an upset five-wicket defeat in a must-win match in Hyderabad on Friday, reports ESPNstar.

Deccan overhauled their victory target of 127 with eight balls to spare, finishing on 128 for five.

Produturi Reddy hit 42 from 35 balls, including four fours and one six, while Shikhar Dhawan and JP Duminy contributed 26 and 24 respectively.

Rajasthan made 126 for eight, Rahul Dravid top-scoring with 39 and Dale Steyn the pick of the Deccan bowlers with two wickets for 16 from his four overs.

Defeat ended the Royals' hopes of making it through to the play-offs.

Mumbai clinch last-ball victory

Rohit Sharma's last-ball six snatched a five-wicket victory for Mumbai Indians against Deccan Chargers in the ninth match of IPL on Monday.

Mumbai looked like they were out of the contest as they chased only 139 especially after Dale Steyn's magnificent spell of bowling.

Steyn first took an outstanding return catch to dismiss Suman and then bowled out Levi to reduce the visitors to 10-2 in four overs.

Then he returned in his second spell to remove Dinesh Karthik to finish with 3 for 12 in four overs.
For a while Kieron Pollard kept Mumbai in the game hitting a quickfire 24 off 18 balls.

But Sharma, who remained undefeated on 73, guided Mumbai home (142-5) in the final over in which they needed 18 runs.

Earlier, Shikhar Dhawan scored a swashbuckling 41 off 24 balls to lift Deccan Chargers to 138-9 after early blows by Munaf Patel who finished with 4-20.

Lasith Malinga grabbed three wickets for 27 runs and Kieron Pollard took two wickets.

Winning the toss, Deccan Chargers got off to a dismal start as Mumbai pacer Patel sent back Parthiv Patel and Bharat Chipli early.

Munaf got Patel caught by Rahul Sharma in his first over and then dismissed Chipli on the first delivery of the fourth over to reduce the hosts to 9-2.

Daniel Christian 39 and Cameron White's unbeaten 30 then gave the total respectability after Kumar Sangakkara was given out as a result of Mumbai skipper Harbhajan Singh and Patel pressurising the umpires to go for a referral.

The controversial incident happened in the 13th over of Deccan innings with Sangakkara clearly out off the bowling of Munaf though the field umpires thought it otherwise initially.

Sangakkara dragged the ball onto the off-stump with the bails dislodged and the ball hit wickets for the second time after ricocheting from Mumbai wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik.

A heated argument followed between Harbhajan and the field umpires with Munaf joining in and play stopped for more than five minutes.

The field umpires, who apparently thought the ball hit wickets after coming off from Karthik's pads, eventually referred the decision to the third umpire who gave Sangakkara out.