Mumbai continue their rule over Knights
Chahar overshadows Russell’s fifer with 4/27 to help MI better their head-to-head record against KKR
On a sluggish and spin-friendly Chepauk wicket, KKR fast bowlers returned eight wickets on Tuesday, with captain Eoin Morgan starting his first five overs with spin. On the same pitch, Mumbai Indians spinners took the first five wickets, with skipper
Rohit Sharma bowling just one over of spin in the Powerplay.
It was a classic contrast of tactics—one out of the box, one orthodox. In the end, the latter prevailed, with MI turning the contest in the final quarter to sneak out with a 10-run victory. It was MI’s 12th win in the last 13 contests against KKR.
KKR were creative: using spin to defend against an MI top-order; then giving their fast bowlers the chance to pounce themselves with pace (and the change of it); then bringing the most trusted personnel to complete the hunt. MI seemed trapped at the break, bowled out for 152.
Sharma went the other way, using his new ball bowlers in Trent Boult, Jasprit Bumrah and Marco Jansen to find breakthroughs. They weren’t coming. KKR were steady with a 72-run opening stand inside nine overs before leggie Rahul Chahar— brought in as late as the ninth over—stood up to be counted as MI’s lead spinner. In his four overs, Chahar got Shubman Gill--he holed out a ball that was a touch quicker—got one to spit sharply to Rahul Tripathi, threw one wide for Morgan’s slog to be caught and got the in-form Nitish Rana ( 57, 47b) stumped to cap off the spell.
It snuffed the life out of KKR, with 30 needed off the last four. Andre Russell and Dinesh Karthik, with all their IPL experience, just couldn’t find the strength to get the big hits, with Bumrah and Boult combining to get the job done.
If Sharma relied on pace at the start and the end, Morgan threw all the eggs of his spin basket comprising Harbhajan Singh, Varun Chakravarthy and Shakib Al Hasan in the powerplay. It resulted in Quinton de Kock, who walked straight out of quarantine into the MI playing XI, holing out at long-on off a flighted Chakravarthy delivery in the second over.
Signs of a grind for batsmen. Not if you’re Suryakumar Yadav. The Indian batsman showed the technique to counter-attack spin on a sluggish surface, sweeping, lofting and driving Singh for three fours off the next over. That Yadav has added more variety to his shot-making menu was apparent in the eighth over from Prasidh Krishna. After picking up a good length ball on middle stump to whack it flat to the midwicket boundary for a six, Yadav opened his left leg slightly to cream the next ball around the same line and length through covers for four. Two
overs later, Yadav took one step to his right, swiveled his bat around the ball pitched outside off and deposited Pat Cummins on the roof behind the square leg boundary for a 99m six to bring up his half-century.
The 50- run partnership between Yadav and skipper Rohit Sharma, who was happy to work the ball around, came off 37 balls and MI were starting to shift gears. Coming into bowl in the 18th over, it was Andre Russell’s turn to do what he does best—bowl around the
wicket and create weird angles for batters to hit. He got his fellow West Indian star Kieron Pollard edging a wide one to Dinesh Karthik off the second ball. He added three wickets off his last four balls; a finish as dramatic as MI’s fall from 86/2 in the 11th over to 152 all out.
Brief scores: MI 152 (Rohit Sharma 43, Suryakumar Yadav 56, Andre Russell 5/15). KKR 142/7 (Nitish Rana 57, Shubman Gill 33; Rahul Chahar 4/27, Trent Boult 2/27). MI won by 10 runs.