West Indies batsman Lendl Simmons led Mumbai Indians to a 146-run win over hosts Delhi Daredevils as the Indian Premier League Twenty20 tournament witnessed its biggest-ever victory margin on Saturday (6).
Simmons, who was playing his first game of the IPL season, smashed a 43-ball 66 to help Mumbai post a mammoth 212-3 before his team skittled out Delhi for 66 in 13.4 overs.
Delhi, who held the previous record of biggest win after defeating Pune by 97 runs last month, recorded their lowest IPL total. They were shot out for 67 against Kings XI Punjab earlier this week.
The Rohit Sharma-led Mumbai became the first team to seal a play-off spot while Delhi slumped to its seventh loss in 11 games at their home venue – Feroz Shah Kotla.
Man of the match Simmons hit five fours and four sixes to give Mumbai a solid start as fellow West Indian Kieron Pollard soon took over and smacked an unbeaten 63 in 35 deliveries.
Simmons, who replaced England’s Jos Buttler in the Mumbai XI, made it a night to remember for the table-toppers with some big hitting and made a quickfire 37-run stand with Pollard.
“I’m good as a replacement player, it’s been good for me,” said Simmons.
“Batting with Pollard is good, we are accustomed playing together. We didn’t have a total in mind, we just had a mind towards keeping the run-rate up and not losing wickets at crucial times.”
Delhi captain Zaheer Khan praised Simmons and Pollard for taking the game away for the home side, which is struggling at the sixth spot in the eight-team table.
“We had our plans, we started well, we stuck to the plan, but the partnership between Lendl and Pollard took the game away from us,” said Zaheer.
“We have to stay positive, we have to regroup, we have a slight break. But it’s all about winning games, playoffs is still possible.”
