Kolkata seal spot in playoffs
KOLKATA: Kolkata Knight Riders’ spin twins - Varun Chakravarthy and Sunil Narine - stifled Mumbai Indians’ chase to seal a playoffs berth for their side, with an almost-certain finish in the top two as well on Saturday.
After Mumbai Indians (MI) were set 158 overs in 16 overs, Varun and Narine started a strangle that saw MI score just 22 runs in the five overs after the powerplay for two wickets that mounted the pressure on the visitors.
Suryakumar Yadav and Tim David had no choice but to go after the quicks and fell to Andre Russell’s variations that saw MI stumble to 92 for 5 and there was no coming back from there, barring a late cameo from Tilak Varma. He reduced the equation to 22 required from the six balls, but his wicket early in the last over eventually handed MI their ninth loss in 13 matches.
After rain had delayed the start of the game by an hour and 45 minutes, the match was reduced to 16 overs a side. Even though KKR lost their openers early, Venkatesh Iyer and some lower-order hitting powered them to 157, which may have seemed short early on but proved to be enough.
Rohit Sharma was struggling for runs and scored at under run a ball in the first six overs. So the onus of hitting was on Ishan Kishan who flat-batted his way to 37 off 17 in the powerplay (which was five overs for this game).
But Narine was ready with his riposte in his next over and had Kishan hole out for 40. Rohit’s struggle ended on 19. Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak also hardly attacked the spinners and the equation soon became 77 required from 36.
Russell then got the ball. His scrambled seam snared Suryakumar and the slower ball removed David. In between, Varun had Hardik Pandya caught for 2 to add to MI’s woes.
The equations like 57 needed from 18 have become all the more achievable in this IPL, and Tilak kept MI’s flame burning when he took on Harshit Rana in the 14th over for 16 runs by dispatching his slower ones to the ropes. No. 8 Naman Dhir took inspiration from Tilak to smash Russell for a couple of sixes and a four for a 19-run over that brought MI back in the game. With 22 needed from six, Dhir and Tilak fell in the first three deliveries of the last over, which sealed MI’s fate.
Earlier, KKR opener Phil Salt kicked off the innings with a firstball six against Nuwan Thushara but fell in the same over. From the other end, Bumrah showed some magic Narine had no answer for and was dismissed for first duck in this IPL.
Venkatesh took charge of the innings. He went down the track, rocked back to pull the short balls, and used his reach to score 25 off 10 in the powerplay. It also included 14 off five balls against Bumrah.
Piyush Chawla had Venkatesh hole out for 42 off 21. Out walked Russell and smoked Chawla over his head for a six and a four in his next two overs, along with a drill through the covers.
Russell took KKR past 100. After being hit for another six in the 13th over, this time by Rinku Singh, Chawla had the last laugh as Russell skied a 117kph thunderbolt to deep midwicket. Thushara and Bumrah then sent down a flurry of yorkers in the last two overs and it was only because of a six each from Rinku and Ramandeep Singh that KKR crossed 150.
Brief scores: Kolkata Knight Riders 157/7 (Venkatesh Iyer 42, Harshit Rana 33; Piyush Chawla 2-28, Jasprit Bumrah 2-39) beat Mumbai Indians 139/8 (Ishan Kishan 40, Tilak Varma 32; Varun Chakravarthy 2-17, Andre Russell 2-34, Harshit Rana 2-34).