Cricket news round-up – 11 April 2019: Double honours for Kohli, Mumbai clinch thriller, Zimbabwe beat UAE

Wisden Almanac 2019, published yesterday, named Virat Kohli the Leading Cricketer in the World for the third consecutive season; they also named him among their Five Cricketers of the Year.

On the field, Mumbai Indians beat Kings XI Punjab off the last ball in IPL 2019, following which Kieron Pollard announced that Rohit Sharma will return for Mumbai’s next match. And Zimbabwe went 1-0 up in the ODI series with a comfortable win against UAE.

Dual honours for Kohli

Virat Kohli became the first cricketer to be named Wisden’s Leading Cricketer in the World thrice. Kohli has, in fact, won the honours for three seasons in a row.

Kohli has also been named one of Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Year – an honour he shares with Tammy Beaumont, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, and Sam Curran.

Smriti Mandhana has been named Leading Cricketer in the Women’s Game; Rashid Khan is the Leading Twenty20 Cricketer in the World; Alastair Cook has featured on the almanac cover; and Geoff Lemon’s Steve Smith’s Men has won the Wisden Book of the Year.

Pollard pulls off stunner for Mumbai

Kings XI Punjab were on track for a win against Mumbai Indians at Wankhede Stadium. They had first put up 197/4 – though it should have been more after KL Rahul and Chris Gayle added 116 in 77 balls for the first wicket.

While Gayle fell for 63, off 36 balls, Rahul batted through the 20 overs, for his 64-ball 100. Unfortunately, no other Punjab batsman reached double figures.

Mumbai were then reduced to 94/4 in 12 overs. But Kieron Pollard (83 in 31 balls), leading Mumbai as standby for the injured Rohit Sharma, had promoted himself to No. 4.

Mumbai needed 58 in 26 balls when the Pandya brothers departed, with only the bowlers to follow. But Pollard, in a flurry of sixes (10 of them), took them to the brink of victory. With 2 to win off the last ball, Alzarri Joseph straight-drove Ankit Rajpoot for a two.

Rohit to return for next match

Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma had missed the Punjab match due to a thigh injury. Pollard had taken over in Rohit’s absence. However, Pollard confirmed in the post-match presentation that Rohit will be back to lead Mumbai in their next match.

“Obviously, Rohit is the captain of the team and it was only a precautionary measure for the team. He should be back in the next game. I would gladly give it back to him and field at the boundary, while also thinking of what to contribute to the team,” said Pollard.

Zimbabwe beat UAE

Zimbabwe beat UAE by 7 wickets in the first match of the 4-match ODI series, at Harare Sports Club. Asked to bat, UAE were reduced to 42/6 before Mohammad Boota (36*) played a lone hand to take them to 110. Tendai Chatara took 3/25, Kyle Jarvis 2/11, Donald Tiripano 2/18, and Brandon Mavuta 2/30, while Sikandar Raza finished with figures of 10-2-21-1.

The Zimbabwe chase was set up by a second-wicket stand between Regis Chakabva (38) and Craig Ervine (51 in 46 balls).