MOHALI, April 26: Kumar Sangakkara’s confident 94-run knock coupled with disciplined bowling fashioned Kings XI Punjab’s 66-run victory over Mumbai Indians in their Indian Premier League match on Friday.

Sangakkara missed out on a well deserved century but propelled his team to a competitive 182, after being sent to bat by the rival skipper.

The hosts then restricted their opponents to 116 for 9 in their quota of 20 overs with Chawla coming up with a brilliant four-over spell, in which he claimed two wickets conceded just 16 runs.

Brett Lee also produced exceptional figures of 4-0-9-1 while Irfan chipped in with two wickets in his team’s first victory in the tournament.

Mumbai Indians’ run chase was far from ideal with both the openers making an early exit courtesy brilliance of Australian paceman Lee.

The fast bowler removed dangerous Sanath Jayasuriya (1) with a superb catch off his own bowling and then effected Luke Ronchi’s run out with an athletic fielding in the third over.

West Indian Dwayne Bravo (23) and Robin Uthappa (21) then did the spade work, lifting the visitors with a 47-run third-wicket partnership.

But the duo went back to the pavillion in a gap of four runs, dealing severe blows to the hopes of the Mumbai team. Rookie Piyush Chawla clean bowled Bravo and local boy VRV Singh had Uthappa caught at short mid-wicket to give another blow to visitors hopes.

The visitors paid the price of not building partnerships as batsmen succumbed to pressure of soaring run-rate and plunged to their third successive defeat.

The Mumbai team, playing without injured captain Sachin Tendulkar, soon found itself in a spot of bother with half of the team back in the pavillion with the scorecard reading just 91.

Shaun Pollock put up good resistance with his 22-run knock before being undone by a stunning one-handed catch by Yuvraj Singh off S Sreesanth.

Earlier, Sangakkara held one end almost throughout as wickets fell regularly from the other on the batting friendly strip of the PCA stadium.

Sangakkara came to the crease after the departure of Irfan Pathan and went back in the penultimate over while attempting a big shot off Harbhajan Singh.

He tried to hoick Singh to get his century with a six but only managed to find Dhawal Kulkarni in the deep, missing out on a well deserved century. His innings came off 56 balls and was adorned with 13 boundaries and one shot over the fence. He also shared crucial 73-run partnership for the second wicket with opener Karan Goel.

The partnership ended with the run out of Goel as he was too late to respond to the call of his partner.

Sangakkara raised 17 runs from Pollock’s third over with a flurry of boundaries all over the park and then hit young pacer Dhawal Kulkarni for 16 runs in the next over to up the tempo.

Yuvraj Singh (18) came on the crease after the fall of Goel but could not last long. Skipper Harbhajan Singh (3-32) was the most successful bowler for the visitors.—Agencies