Tag: Kolkata Knight Riders vs Mumbai Indians

By PTI

ABU DHABI: Rookie Venkatesh Iyer left many in awe of his talent as Kolkata Knight Riders produced a clinical performance for the second successive game since IPL’s resumption to tame the mighty Mumbai Indians by seven wickets and enter the top-four in the points table here on Thursday.

Iyer (53 off 30), playing his second IPL game, displayed the wide range of his strokes alongside Rahul Tripathi (74 not out off 42) to enable KKR to chase MI’s modest total of 155 for six with as many as 29 balls to spare.

Quinton de Kock struck an entertaining 55 for MI before KKR bowlers bounced back in the last 10 overs, conceding 75 runs and taking five wickets.

Shubman Gill and Iyer gave KKR another flying start with the first two overs bowled by Trent Boult and Adam Milne going for 15 runs each.

Gill flicked Boult for a delightful six while Iyer pulled the New Zealand pace spearhead to set the tone for the rest of the innings.

While Jasprit Bumrah found Gill’s stumps in the third over, Iyer went on to play a memorable knock comprising four boundaries and three sixes.

Iyer and Tripathi shared an 88-run stand for the second wicket which completely shut the door on MI, who suffered their second loss since IPL’s resumption.

Earlier, MI skipper Rohit Sharma (33 off 30) got off the innings in scintillating fashion, caressing a Nitish Rana delivery on to the mid-off boundary.

The skipper, who was in sublime touch in the Tests in England, had not played the opening game against CSK.

Star all-rounder Hardik Pandya did not start once again, raising questions about his fitness.

Rohit took the attack to mystery spinner Varun Charkravarthy with two consecutive fours in opening two deliveries of the fourth over.

De Kock was not to be left behind as he matched his skipper stroke for stroke, pulling a Lockie Ferguson delivery over the fence for the first maximum of the match.

Introduced into the attack in the sixth over, Prasidh Krishna was taken to task by de Kock, hitting the medium pacer twice over the fence to pick up 16 runs from his first over as MI cantered to 56 for no loss.

De Kock seemed unstoppable as he welcomed Andre Russell with consecutive fours.

Morgan bowled out trump card Chakravarthy by the 11th over (4-0-22-0) with MI not losing a wicket against him.

Sunil Narine was also tidy giving away only 20 runs in four overs.

With de Kock going hammer and tongs, Rohit played the second fiddle and scored 33 runs off 30 balls before Narine got his man for the ninth time in T20s, holing out to Shubman Gill at the boundary.

KKR pulled things back between 10-15 overs, conceding only 26 runs and picked up two wickets.

Pollard, as he often does, came up with much needed big hits in the last five overs, including a flat batted six over mid wicket in Krishna’s 18-run over.

Ferguson bowled a brilliant last over for KKR, removing the dangerous duo of Pollard and Krunal Pandya (12) at the cost of only six runs.

MI collected 49 runs from the last five overs.

By ANI
CHENNAI: After a disappointing 10-run defeat against Mumbai Indians at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Tuesday, Kolkata Knight Riders all-rounder Andre Russell said that the side will learn from their mistakes and will do better in the coming games.

Mumbai Indians defeated KKR by 10 runs thanks to an all-rounder bowling performance from the Rohit Sharma-led side. Russell’s five-wicket haul had bundled Mumbai Indians out for 152 after batsman Suryakumar Yadav’s (56) quickfire knock. In response, KKR were restricted to 142/7.

KKR were right on the track for an easy win but Rahul Chahar spun a web and removed the top four batsmen before Jasprit Bumrah and Trent Boult’s fiery spell handed Mumbai Indians the match.

“Yeah, I support that (Shah Rukh Khan) tweet but at the end of the day the game of cricket… you are not sure until it’s over. I think we are still confident, we still played some good cricket and I am proud of the boys. You know, we are definitely disappointed but it’s not the end of the road, it’s only the second game and we are going to learn from it,” Russell said in the virtual post-match press conference.

“I just think it’s a game of cricket. I have played hundreds of T20 games and I have seen games where teams cruise in on the driver’s seat and then suddenly lose a few wickets, new batters come in and struggle to get away and that’s what happened tonight,” he said.

“So, we definitely have to learn from this as I have said before. We will look to make sure that who’s in, stays in and once we learn from all these mistakes that happened tonight we will definitely do better because we have a good team. I have trust and confidence in the boys,” the all-rounder added.

Rusell further said the wicket was not the easiest to bat on and for him also it was challenging.

“You have to try and stay as still as possible, be open-minded. It is a difficult wicket to bat on and it is not easy for a new batsman to come in and start the hitting from ball one. It is very challenging, even for me the ball was a bit up and down. It is not the easiest wicket to bat on, no matter how good you are you still need a couple of balls to actually get your eye in,” he said.

KKR will next play against Royal Challengers Bangalore here at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on April 18.