Kieron Pollard whacked the ball to all parts of the field to make his 100th match for the blue and silver stripes team most memorable. His and Mumbai Indians’ legion of supporters known as ``MIpaltan’’ rejoiced every time the 28-year-old swung his bat and tonked the ball well clear of the barbed fencing of the Wankhede Stadium in the last home match against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on Thursday.
Poor Rajagiopal Sathish – who had turned out 21 times in the 2010 and 2011 editions for his adversary of Thursday --- had hardly built a reputation to do extraordinary things with the ball; 3 wickets at 74. 33 in 22.1 overs was all he had to show for before the match. And so when the KKR captain Gautam Gambhir tossed the ball to the trundler, the writing on the wall was clear as the big-made from Trinidad and Tobago sealed the fate of the match taking 20 runs (3 x 6s and 1 x 2) in the murderous onslaught in the 16th over of the second session.
Pollard did not give scope for Sunil Narine’s riddles to make any further meaningful impact in the match. First the mystery off spinner had called Krunal Pandya’s bluff and then he saw Australian Chris Lynn’s boundary-line catch at long off (the act of catching the ball, tossing the ball in the air while stepping out of the line and then jumping back into the field to complete the catch to be legal) get rid of Jos Buttler. Narine had one more over, but by the time he was brought in the 17th over, KKR and Gambhir had seen the debacle coming caused by Pollard’s mayhem.
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Pollard repeated the three-6 act when Saurashtra’s left arm seamer Jaydev Unadkat was given the ball to bowl the 18th over. MI needed 69 off 42 balls at the fall of Buttler’s wicket and Pollard made 51 off just 17, with his skipper Rohit Sharma taking the nearest `spectator’s position’ a few yards in front of the straight umpire. Sharma, whose average against KKR jumped to 54.58 (18 innings, 6 no,655 runs, 1 x 100 (109*),4 x 50s, run rate of 8.43) with his unbeaten 68 said at the post-match that he felt happy at Pollard peaking at the right time.
MI has never lost faith in Pollard, who has now scored 1873 runs off 1254 balls (100 matches, 92 innings, 28 not outs, 9 x 50s, run rate of 8.96, average 29.27). In addition he has taken 56 wickets and held 53 catches and may have stopped hundreds of runs and these numbers say a lot as to why MI rate him as a Most Valuable Player.
A knee injury has made him a cautious fielder in the deep; everyone saw it all on Thursday, but a key member of the support staff for many seasons, Robin Singh, did not see much in Pollard becoming a trifle tardy. ``I think he’s okay. He’s just getting over his injury. He’s come back to cricket much earlier than what we had expected. He’s done a lot of rehab, we are pretty satisfied with him and even the trainers are satisfied with his fitness.’’
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MI has also used him strategically well at No. 6 where he has scored 739 runs in 28 innings (11 not outs, 6 x 50s). Pollard has scored 633 at No. 5, 219 at No. 7, 200 at No. 4, 48 at No. 8 and 34 at No. 3.
After the match Pollard tweeted: Thank god for small mercies!! And teammate Harbhajan `Bhajji’ Singh used his twitter handle to say: KP special. Ball still going big fella. Pollard has now figured in 60 wins for MI.