Home teams getting down in their own turfs seem to be the order of the day. This has what happened in the first three matches in various place in the fifth season of the Indian Premier League. The first match at Chennai saw the Chennai Super Kings bow down to Mumbai Indians. In the second one at Kolkata, Kolkata knight Riders were defeated by Delhi Dare Devils. And in the thirds match at Mumbai on Friday. The home team Mumbai Indians were defeated by the Pune Warriors headed by the former Indian Captain Saurav Ganguly.  And in most cases, hapless performance by the home teams led to the debacle.

The third match of the IPL -5 at the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai was no better where the Mumbai Indians played against the Pune Warriors. Mumbai won the toss and elected to field, as usual. The PW who came into bat made a 129 after losing 9 wickets. At the willow Robin Uthappa knocked 36 runs and Steven Smith made 39 runs and was named the Man of the Match. In the bowling department Malinga and Munaf Patel grabbed two wickets each.

In return the MI who came into bat with many stalwarts in the team disappointed the fans much. They surrendered meekly for a total of 101 in twenty overs after losing nine wickets. The willow honours were shared by Dinesh Karthik and James Franklin who scored each 32 runs. On the bowling front the damage was done by Ashok Dinde who claimed 4 wickets. Sachin was not in the squad much to the anticipation of the fans. He has not recovered from the injury.

May be most teams are relaxing as these are just starting matches. But more action is yet to come and fans need not be disappointed. More fireworks are expected in this 45-day carnival.