IT’S MUMBAI VS PUNE ON SUNDAY!
SCORES MUMBAI (111/4) KOLKATA (107 ALL OUT)
Mumbai Indians players celebrate the fall of a Kolkata Knight Riders wicket during a IPL qualifier match in Bangalore on Friday. Mumbai bowler Jaspreet Bumrah (facing camera) took 3 wickets for 7 runs in a stellar performance.
After all the hype, it really proved out to be a no match. Mumbai Indians did not even had to sweat it out to beat the upbeat Kolkata team after their victory in the drenched match against Sunrisers Hyderabad. The target of 108 set up by the Kolkata team after they were put to bat by Mumbai on winning the toss, never proved to be challenging for Mumbai which boasts of a very strong batting line. Mumbai crossed the finish line losing just 4 wickets with 33 balls remaining. They will take on Pune in this year’s final at Hyderabad on Sunday.
Mumbai’s target was made easy by Krunal Pandya who scored a quickfire 45 of just 30 balls. Parthiv Patel 14, captain Rohit Sharma 26 of 24 balls also played their parts well. As the target was not at all challenging, failure of opner Lendl Simmons and Ambati Rayudu was not even noticed.
Kolkata ballers also failed to tie up the Mumbai batsmen. Although Piyush Chawla and Sunil Narine were brilliant, others could not deliver. Chawala got an early breakthrough when he found Simmons in front of the stumps. He then went on to clean bowl Rayudu, who is considered to be a good tackler of spin bowling. However other bowlers including Narine failed to take wickets and that costed Kolkata the match even as the Rohit-Krunal partnership bloomed. Their 54 runs stand sealed Mumbai’s victory. Kolkata’s decision to pick Ankit Rajpoot and not giving a chance to Kuldeep Yadav raised many eyebrows. The chinaman bowler with Chawla and Narine could have been the X factor for Kolkata.
Earlier, Mumbai Indians' leg-spinner Karn Sharma took four wickets to bowl Kolkata Knight Riders out for a paltry 107 in 18.5 overs in their Indian Premier League (IPL) second qualifier clash at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Friday.
Karn (4/16) was brilliant on the night taking the wickets of Sunil Narine (10), Gautam Gambhir (12), Colin de Grandhomme (0) and Ishank Jaggi (28) to derail KKR's innings. He won the man of the match award owing to this performance.
Suryakumar Yadav (31) and Jaggi put a semblance of a fight with a 56-run association for the sixth wicket but could not script a turnaround as the former fell in the 18th over looking to accelerate.
Umesh Yadav (2) was not out as Ankit Rajpoot (4) was the last man to be dismissed.
Morning showed the day as opener Chris Lynn (4) was sent back early by medium pacer Jasprit Bumrah (3/7) with a fullish delivery which the explosive Australian tried to loft over mid-on but was picked up by Keiron Pollard. The men in purple, who usually score at a brisk pace in the Powerplay overs, struggled to get going with the ball not coming on to the bat even as Gambhir continued his good form hitting the first four of the innings in the third over off Mitchell Johnson, playing in place Mitchell McClenaghan.
Narine, kept quiet by Bumrah, Mitchell Johnson (2/28) and Lasith Malinga (1/24), cut loose with an uppish shot over deep midwicket for the first six of the innings before Karn outfoxed the West Indian spinner with a googly that saw Parthiv Patel effect an easy stumping.
Robin Uthappa (1) did not last long, being trapped plumb by Bumrah, while trying to flick across the line.
After six overs, KKR could of
muster just 25/3, and skipper Gambhir lost his wicket five balls into the seventh over. The southpaw was looked good before playing against the turn off Karn for Hardik Pandya to pouch the ball at deep midwicket.
Keeping veteran tweaker Harbhajan Singh on the bench, Karn vindicated his captain Rohit Sharma's faith in him by taking the wicket of Colin de Grandhomme in the next delivery, pinging the New Zealander on his backfoot for an easy leg before decision. After 10 overs, KKR were tottering at 43/5. In the next four overs, Suryakumar and Jaggi sought to stem the rout, scoring 40 runs before their stand was broken by the excellent Karn, taking the prized scalp of Jaggi.
Piyush Chawla departed adding just two to the total and Nathan Coulter-Nile tonked Johnson for a six to bring up KKR's 100 in the 17th over before getting out.