Bangalore, May, 15: Excellent performance by Ambati Rayudu and Kieron Pollard in the end, powered Mumbai Indians (MI) to register its third consecutive win in Indian Premier League (IPL-5) against Royal Bangalore Challenger (RCB).

Rayudu scored unbeaten 81 in 51 balls including six boundaries and four sixes, while Kieron Pollard scored 52 balls including five boundaries and three six.

Rayudu and Pollard pulled off a remarkable chase on Monday evening as Mumbai Indians overcame an early failure (5/51) to gun down the 172 target they were set by Royal Challengers Bangalore.

After Mayank Agarwal’s RCB middle order batsman brilliant effort of 64 in 30 balls helped home team to put a fight total 171 in the rain-delayed first innings in M.Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru.

Mumbai looked down at 51-5 in the ninth over – with Sachin Tendulkar (dismissed for a golden duck), Herschelle Gibbs, Rohit Sharma, Dinesh Karthik and Dwayne Smith back in the pavilion.  Rayudu and Pollard build their innings and pull out match from defeat.

The pair added 122 in less than 12 overs for the sixth wicket and pull the CLT20 Champions to second place on the points table. Pollard initiated the carnage by hammering successive sixes off left-arm spinner K.P. Appanna in the 11th over.

Still, fifty-seven were needed from the last four overs when Zaheer Khan came on for his third and was unceremoniously carted for 16. In the next, Rayudu tore into Vinay Kumar, a sequence of 6, 4, 6 restructuring the equation somewhat in the favour of the chaser.

Pollard, who hit six, and two consecutive fours in last over to pass the RCB score, after the a five-wicket win, with two balls to spare Mumbai placed in second position in point table.

Earlier, Bangalore Gayle and A.B. de Villiers out cheaply and team was struggling on 87-4 in the 12th over, before fantastic hitting by Agarwal pulled them up to a competitive total of 171.

Agarwal whipped up a frenzy in his 30-ball 64 – his first IPL fifty – and provided the final flourish by massacring Munaf Patel for 24 in the last over of the innings

The match was delayed by an hour due to rain, and soon after commencement Gayle played on to Munaf. More trouble followed for Bangalore when Gibbs, all of 38 years, engineered the run-out of Virat Kohli, who fell as much to the South African’s agility as to a mix-up and a slip on the turf.