KKR cruise to win vs MI
Fifties from Tripathi and Venkatesh lift Knight Riders to fourth in the table with win vs Mumbai
KOLKATA: Shubman Gill wading into a Trent Boult delivery and flicking it for six began an evening where Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) put coach Brendon Mccullum’s mantra of playing fearless cricket to its sternest test and emerged with flying colours. One IPL tie old, Venkatesh Iyer too had come out caring a fig for reputation. This was batting in fifth gear going up to sixth and it produced an onslaught that flattened Mumbai Indians (MI) and laid the platform for a seven-wicket win with 29 balls to spare.
MI tried to rattle KKR with pace but the bowlers strayed in line and Iyer went swinging after them. The first two overs yielded 30 and when Jasprit Bumrah came on, Gill welcomed him with a flick before Iyer drove him down the ground. Bumrah bowled Gill but Rahul Tripathi (74—42b, 4x8, 6x3) and Iyer (53—30b, 4x4, 6x3) played some breathtaking shots to seal another emphatic win, KKR’S second in as many games after IPL14 resumed. Dancing down the track to Krunal Pandya, slog sweeping Bumrah and Rahul Chahar or playing a delicate steer, the duo added 88 runs to complement the good work of their bowlers.
It put to bed to theory, if MI lose their mojo, bring on KKR. They have won 12 of their last 13 games, 22 of 28 overall. And on the rare occasion they did beat MI at Wankhede Stadium, it fetched Shah Rukh Khan a stadium ban. So, when Rohit Sharma started with a sumptuous off-drive to the evening’s first ball—bowled by Nitish Rana in a somewhat left-field decision by Eoin Morgan—it seemed like same old, same old.
Sharma and Quinton de Kock motored to 56/0 after the powerplay. While that didn’t quite vindicate Morgan’s decision to bowl first, it wasn’t too bad either. In T20speak, KKR coach Mccullum said during a pitchside interview that the bowlers now need to stay in the over. In normal parlance that would mean not giving up. Through MI’S opening stand during which Sunil Narine went for 11, Sharma and De Kock helping themselves to a four each in his first over, and Prasidh Krishna leaked 16, KKR did that.
At the toss, Morgan had said their bowling worked well in the first game, hinting therefore why fix something that isn’t broken. KKR reined MI in with spin on an Abu Dhabi track that yielded no turn through Narine and Varun Chakravarthy. And by taking the pace off the ball.
Sharma fell to Narine for the ninth time and after getting to the personal landmark of 1,000 runs against KKR. It happened after an Andre Russell over which began with De Kock smashing a boundary past cover and then one that almost flattened Sharma. That match was then 8.2 overs old. It would be the last boundary MI hit in 39 balls. In that time Sharma holed out in the deep and Surya Kumar Yadav fell to a slower delivery from Krishna—the first off his second spell.
By then it had behoved on De Kock to guide MI to a healthy total. The South African had negotiated the power play, seen the spinners through and had got a half-century. But after Krishna conceded a free hit—he bowled two no-balls on Thursday and one on Monday—and a wide, he got a slower one right and De Kock was caught by Narine. After an expensive first over, Krishna gave away nine runs in his next two, took two wickets and bowled seven dot balls.
Russell got some punishment trying for the yorkers that didn’t land--the one that did had Keiron Pollard letting go between his legs offering no shot in the 19th over. MI got 13 in the 16th over and 18 in Krishna’s final over, the innings’ 18th, and Russell gave away 10 in the next. Ferguson bowled the last over with three dot balls in which MI lost their KPS, Kieron Pollard and Krunal Pandya, off successive deliveries and could add only six to the total. Given MI’S bowling attack, 156 would have been a fighting score but on Thursday night, they were up against batters in an intimidating shade of deep purple.
Brief scores: Mumbai Indians 155/6 in 20 overs (Q de Kock 55; L Ferguson 2/27) lost to Kolkata Knight Riders 159/3 in 15.1 overs (R Tripathi 74*, V Iyer 53; J Bumrah 3/43) by seven wickets.