The Mumbai Indians lost to Kolkata Knight Riders by a big margin of 7 wickets at the Shiekh Zayed Stadium in Dubai. This has taken the Knight Riders to the 4th position in the points table and has made their qualification chances significantly stronger with 5 games to go. KKR now has got a total of 8 points from 9 games and stands in a similar position to Mumbai and Rajasthan. But they have a better net run rate. Venkatesh Iyer was the star scoring a quickfire 50. Rohit Sharma returned to Mumbai in place of Anmolpreet Singh.
Mumbai Indians Batting: –
Mumbai Indians started on a very positive note with the comeback of their skipper Rohit Sharma. Rohit replaced Anmolpreet from the last game. Hardik Pandya the star pace bowling all-rounder was still missing from this lineup. Mumbai outstandingly began their innings. KKR began bowling with spinners and QDK and Rohit eased in. They played their shots and were rotating the strike very well. KKR understood that their spin strategy hadn’t worked well and shifted to pacers in the 5th over itself.
All was well until the 9th over for MI where they lost Rohit Sharma to Narine. Narine scalped Rohit for a record 7th time in the IPL. The scorecard read 78-1. Next in was Surya. Surya didn’t trouble the scorers much and was the next one to depart at 89-2. Kishan walked in. Kishan and QDK carried on the partnership before Prasidh sent De Kock back at 106-3. Narine took the catch. This caused a collapse as always in the Mumbai batting.
Pollard and Pandya then got together at the crease. Pollard was looking well set and so was Krunal. They took the score closer to 150 and went back to the pavilion. Saurabh Tiwary then smoked a boundary on the penultimate ball and got the momentum for the Indians as they went back to the pavilion. 155-6, after 20 overs.
Kolkata Knight Riders Batting: –
The star of the show for KKR from ball 1 was Venkatesh Iyer. Venkatesh tonked the ball like no other. He took on the likes of Boult and Milne from ball one. This was exactly how Eoin Morgan guided his England Team to punish the opposition. The aggressive play got inside the mind of Rohit and he had to bring his main strike bowler Jasprit Bumrah back on! Jasprit did deliver a blow by dismissing Gill from the other end but Iyer was looking in sound touch. He was having a good time on the crease. 6,6,6,4,4, 4….it was raining boundaries. Next in was Rahul Tripathi.
Rahul Tripathi too played well alongside Iyer. Since Iyer was accelerating in the initial part of the innings Rahul went slow and steady. Rotating the strike was his motto. But as soon as he got to set the party began from both sides. They stitched a partnership of 88 runs. The scoreboard read 128-2 when Venkatesh went back. He scored a quickfire 53 of 30 balls. Scoring the first 30 runs in 10 balls. Morgan, the skipper came in next but couldn’t hang around much scoring 7 Runs before Bumrah sent him back getting caught in the hands of Boult.
All in all, the game was a treat to watch for the fans as KKR chased the target in 15.1 overs. Andre Russell didn’t even contribute with the bat and KKR’s ship was sailing supremely well. Rahul Tripathi took the team home by scoring 74 of 42 balls.
