They, however, finished the group stage with three losses from five matches, including another against Mumbai. Mumbai began the season with the new opening batting partnership of Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting, who was acquired in the auction and took on the captaincy. This partnership failed to produce runs and Ponting was benched after five matches. Instead, Mumbai's batting solely depended on Dinesh Karthik, Rohit Sharma and Kieron Pollard and they could only win three of their first six matches. Mumbai were at the middle of the points table halfway through the season. As the tournament progressed, they had a more consistent top order with Dwayne Smith replacing Ponting and an improved bowling attack that included Mitchell Johnson, in his first IPL season, Harbhajan Singh, Lasith Malinga and Pragyan Ojha. Sharma, who took over the captaincy from Ponting, continued his form while Karthik began to struggle. Pollard only made one more significant contribution when he scored 66 runs from 27 balls. Towards the end of the group stage, Tendulkar suffered a wrist injury. This did not hamper the team as his replacement, Aditya Tare, showed promise with a score of 59 runs in his first innings. Mumbai only lost two of their last ten matches, both due to batting collapses. In the two group stage matches between Mumbai and Chennai, Mumbai won both. In the first, Mumbai initially struggled and were 83 for 6 after 12 overs before Pollard's unbeaten innings of 57 runs from 38 balls lifted them to a total of 148 for 6. Chennai suffered a similar collapse to lose the match by 9 runs despite a valiant innings of 51 runs from Dhoni. In their second encounter, Mumbai struggled to a below-par total of 139 for 5 with Sharma having the top score of 39. Chennai was then bowled out for 79, the lowest total of the season, and lost by 60 runs. Only three of their batsmen made scores of double figures, including Hussey who was dropped by Pollard in three successive deliveries off Johnson's bowling. Dhoni described the match as "a comedy of errors" and explained the cause of the defeat to be complacency and a lack of focus as they had won their past seven matches. The playoff stage is played according to the Page playoff system and provided Mumbai and Chennai, being the top- and second-ranked teams, with two ways of qualifying for the Final.