Mumbai Indians produced a brilliant bowling and fielding performance after Ishan Kishan’s batting pyrotechnics as they thrashed Kolkata Knight Riders by 102 runs to keep themselves in the hunt for a play-offs berth in the Indian Premier League, in Kolkata, on Wednesday.
Sent into bat at the Eden Gardens, defending champions MI scored an imposing 210 for six, riding on 19-year-old Kishan’s 21-ball 62, studded with five fours and six sixes, and then bowled KKR out for a paltry 108 in 18.1 overs.
The Pandya brothers starred with the ball, with both Hardik and Krunal picking up two wickets each.
Following their third successive victory, MI jumped to fourth spot with 10 points from 11 matches. KKR also have the same 10 points from 11 matches but they are a place down at fifth on the net run rate.
Chasing an imposing target of 211, KKR suffered a batting collapse under some fine bowling and fielding show by MI who needed a win to stay afloat in the tournament.
Chris Lynn and Nitish Rana top-scored with 21 each while all the other KKR batsmen came a cropper. Their highest partnership was 31 between Lynn and Uthappa (14) for the second wicket.
KKR made a disastrous start to their run chase as Sunil Narine (4) was out in the second ball, top-edging a Mitchell McClenaghan short delivery to Krunal Pandya.
A horrible mix up in the fourth over led to Lynn being run out as the home side were reduced to 32 for two.
Uthappa was the third batsman to go as he hit one straight to Suryakumar Yadav at deep midwicket off leg-spinner Mayank Markande in the seventh over and Andrew Russell followed suit in the next over, after being deceived by a Hardik Pandya slow delivery.
KKR were in deep trouble with half of their batting line-up gone in the ninth over for just 67 runs.
Captain Dinesh Karthik (5) also could not do much with the bat as he was controversially run out in 10th over with KKR slipping further.
McClenaghan then held on to a brilliant running catch to dismiss Rana the next ball to leave the hosts in complete shambles. Mumbai continued their wicket ways as KKR were bowled out in the 19th over as they barely managed to cross the 100-run mark.
Earlier, Kishan smashed a 17-ball half-century as Mumbai Indians overcame a slow start to post an imposing 210 for six.
Kishan tore apart the KKR bowling, especially Kuldeep Yadav who was clobbered for four consecutive sixes, en route to his entertaining 21-ball 62, laced with six sixes and five fours, as MI scripted a turnaround in the middle overs.
The momentum shifted in favour of MI in the 14th over that yielded 25 runs with Kishan making a mockery of chinaman spinner Kuldeep’s bowling.
First, Ishan swept Kuldeep high over deep square leg, then smashed across the line, followed by stepping out to hit the bowler over long on to get to his fifty from 17 balls — the joint second fastest of the season with Sunil Narine.
Ishan ended the over with a helicopter shot as MI scored 73 runs from five overs in the middle to reach to 145 for three in 15 overs from being a modest 72 for two midway into their innings.
After Ishan, it was Cutting show as he hit the first three balls of the final over for a six each en route to his quickfire cameo of 24 from nine balls as MI finished on a high with 22 runs in the final over bowled by Piyush Chawla.
Kuldeep returned most expensive with 43 runs from his three overs, followed by Chawla who took three for 48 but was at his expensive best.
But the picture looked different midway into MI’s innings with Sunil Narine (1/27) giving them the initial edge after Dinesh Karthik opted to chase.
Openers Suryakumar Yadav (36) and Evin Lewis (18) once again gave MI a flying start with the KKR pace trio of Andre Russell, Prasidh Krishna and Tom Curran leaking 24 runs in the first three overs.
As has been their ploy, Narine came inside the Powerplay and cleverly deceived the batsmen with his guile to restrict the run flow with nine runs from his first two overs.
Narine set up the stage for an ordinary-looking Chawla to give the breakthrough in the sixth over as the desperate Mumbai batsmen looked to break free against the leg-spinner who accounted for both the openers.
But then came Ishan who hit top gear, dealing with only fours and sixes in his whirlwhind half-century. The bulk of Mumbai’s runs — 148 — came from boundaries as they thrashed the KKR bowlers to all parts of the Eden Gardens stadium.
Source: Rediff