ROBIN, GAUTI PUNISH PUNE

Pune, April 26: Robin Uthappa made a mockery of Rising Pune Supergiant’s bowling attack to anchor Kolkata Knight Riders closer towards a play-off berth with a convincing seven wicket win in an IPL match, here on Wednesday.

The India discard righthander struck a matchwinning 87 off just 47 balls balls and was ably supported by skipper Gautam Gambhir, who made 62 off 46 deliveries, as two-time champions KKR regained their spot in top of the standings with six wins from eight games.

While Uthappa decorated his knock with seven boundaries and six hits over the fence, Gambhir innings was laced with six fours and one six.

The duo stitched 158 runs off just 85 balls for the second wicket to help KKR chase down the 183run target with 11 balls to spare.

Earlier, Steven Smith led from the front with an unbeaten 51 to lift Pune to a challenging 182 for five.

Smith’s half-century came off 37 balls with the help of four boundaries and a six.

Besides Smith, Ajinkya Rahane (46 off 41 balls), Rahul Tripathi (38 off 23), Mahendra Singh Dhoni (23 off 11) and Daniel Christian (16 off 6) also made useful contributions for the home team.

Left-arm chinaman bowler Kuldeep Yadav was the pick of the bowlers for KKR with figures of two for 31.

Chasing the target, Sunil Narine (15 off 9 balls) once again got KKR off to a brisk start before he was run out in the third over.

Then Uthappa and Gambhir joined hands and took control off the chase with a bit of luck on their favour.

Uthappa was lucky to have survived a close LBW call when he was yet to open his account and later when Jaydev Unadkat made a mess of a chance at deep midwicket off Imran Tahir’s bowling with the batsman on 12.

The stylish righthander grabbed the opportunities with both hands and thereafter opened his arms to struck boundaries and sixes at will.

Uthpappa did not spare a single Pune bowler with young Sundar and Unadkat facing the maximum wrath. — PTI

65

Number of runs put on by Rising Pune Supergiant's opening partnership — their best in eight innings at the MCA Stadium, their home ground.

2

Kuldeep Yadav became just the second bowler to have two batsmen stumped in the same over in the IPL. Amit Mishra did so against Royals in 2009.