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The crowds had thronged the picturesque venue hoping against hope to see master-blaster Sachin Tendulkar in action for the first time here.
But it was not to be as the MI management decided against risking him in a match of no consequence to keep him fit for the first qualifier against Chennai Super Kings in Delhi on Tuesday. Tendulkar had sprained his wrist while batting and had missed the last game too in Mumbai.
In Tendulkar's absence, the crowds here were compensated by some entertaining batting by Shaun Marsh (63) and Azhar Mahmood (80) and their hurricane 148-run stand as the home team piled up a healthy 183 eight and in reply Mumbai fell 51 runs short of the target.
The Punjab bowlers for once put up a grand display to give their skipper Adam Gilchrist, playing his final T20 game, a winning farewell.
Gilly came on to bowl the final over and with his first ball had Harbhajan Singh caught at long-on to finish off his playing career with a wicket.
Mumbai kept losing wickets in the chase, with only Aditya Tare, Rohit Sharma and Kieron Pollard getting into the 20s. For once, it was a good bowling effort by the KXIP bowlers, with leggie Piyush Chawla and Sandeep Sharma being the most impressive.
There was a bit of drama at the fag end as Sandeep Sharma had Pollard caught thrice in three balls, first off a no-ball, then off a free hit and finally off a legal delivery to send back the dangerous batsman back in the pavilion to virtually seal the match for his team.
KXIP's fate had depended on Sunrisers Hyderabad losing their match against Rajasthan Royals on Friday night.
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