Pollard, Buttler power Mumbai Indians to victory over RCB

Bengaluru: Mumbai Indians relied on a late assault from Kieron Pollard and Jos Buttler to beat Royal Challengers Bangalore by six wickets in their crucial Indian Premier League (IPL) match and keep their hopes of a play-offs berth alive here on Wednesday.
Chasing 152 for a win, Pollard and Buttler smashed unbeaten cameos of 35 and 29 respectively to share 55 runs from just 3.3 overs for the unbroken fifth wicket to take Mumbai home with eight balls to spare at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.
Pollard smashed three fours and two sixes in his 19-ball unbeaten innings while Buttler hit one four and three sixes in his 11-ball unconquered knock as the duo struck a flurry of fours and sixes towards the end to take Mumbai home.
Ambati Rayudu contributed a 47-ball 44 to keep Mumbai in the chase early on after captain Rohit Sharma (25) and Parthiv Patel (1) were out.
Bangalore kept themselves into the match with some brilliant fielding as Stuart Binny and AB de Villiers took a stunning catch each but in the end the score they defended was found to be too small.
Buttler hit the winning runs, a six, as Mumbai reached 153 for four in 18.4 overs to notch up their sixth win in 11 matches and jump to the fourth spot in the league table with 12 points.
Bangalore, on the other hand, slumped to their sixth loss in 10 matches as they remained at sixth spot with eight points. They will now need to win all their remaining matches to have a chance of making it to the play-offs stage.
Mumbai suffered an early jolt with Parthiv getting out in the second over with Sreenath Aravind inducing a thick edge from the batsman's bat for Shane Watson to take a regulation catch at first slip.
Mumbai had captain Rohit Sharma at the other end and along with Rayudu steadied the innings with sensible batting.
The visiting side were 39 for one at the end of powerplay overs and were cruising along before Rohit was dismissed at a crucial time. The Mumbai captain did not play his pull shot properly off Varun Aaron and de Villiers had an easy catch at the long-on.
Brief scores: Royal Challengers Bangalore 151/4 in 20 overs (Lokesh Rahul 68 n.o., Sachin Baby 25 n.o.; Hardik Pandya 1/15) lost to Mumbai Indians 153 for 4 in 18.4 overs (Ambati Rayudu 44, Kieron Pollard 35 n.o.; Varun Aaron 2/37).