Mumbai: Mumbai Indians defeated Kolkata Knight Riders by four wickets in the seventh match of the 10th edition of Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Wankhede Stadium on Sunday. Chasing a challenging target of 179 runs from Kolkata, Mumbai won the match by 4 wickets with a ball remaining.
The opening pair of Parthiv Patel (30) and Jos Buttler (28) gave Mumbai a daunting start by adding 65 runs in 7.3 overs.
But here Kolkata’s bowlers returned and gave the signal of returning to the match, taking wickets of Patel, Butler and Rohit Sharma (2) at regular intervals. After this, the Kunal Pandya (11), who got on the field, quickly got 23 runs in the next 14 balls with Nitish Rana (50).
However, Ankit Rajput saved Kolkata’s hopes by running the krunal on the first ball of the 13th over. Behind the Krunal wicket, Robin was caught by Uthappa. After coming in to bat, Kieron Pollard (17) came in with the help of a six off the third ball, but in the four overs between the 13th over and 16 overs, Mumbai could only add 20 runs and its Ascending rate reached 15.
Chris Woakes showed Pollard the pavilion on the total of 119. Pollard was caught by substitute fielder Rishi Dhawan.
Hardik Pandya (unbeaten 29) and Rana, who hit 30 runs in the last over in their last match against Pune, came with the help of Rana. Both batsmen started batting on the horizontal here and added 41 runs in the next 14 balls with the help of four fours and three sixes.
Meanwhile, Rana completed his half-century in 28 balls with the help of five fours and three sixes. However, after completing the half-century, he could only play two balls. Sunil Narine caught Rana’s catch on Rajput’s ball
When Rana returned to the pavilion, Mumbai needed 19 runs in nine balls to win. Hardik hit a six in the same over and Mumbai were 11 runs away from victory in the last over.
In the meantime, Kolkata made many mistakes in fielding, proved to be unable to stop the boundaries, dropped out of the catch and missed the opportunity to run out.
The simple catch of Hardik on the fourth ball of the last over was left by Dhawan, whose caliber Calcutta had to suffer. Hardik gave victory to his team by chasing the next ball.
Ankit Rajput picked up three wickets for Kolkata. Wox, Naren and Kuldeep Yadav got one wicket each.
Earlier, after battling the toss, Kolkata made a challenging total of 178 for seven wickets in 20 overs in the 20 overs due to the hapless innings of Manish Pandey (81 not out).
Kolkata started early, though captain Gautam Gambhir (19) fell cheaply. On the second ball of the fifth over in the fifth over, the victims of Krupal Pandya were caught.
Robin Uthappa (4) too was caught in the hands of Hardik Pandya in an attempt to play high shot on the fifth ball of the same over. Chris Lynn (32), who gave a spectacular win over the Gujarat Lions in the last match, returned soon after being hit by Jaspreet Bumrah’s pavilion.
In the next over, Kunal Pandya pushed Yusuf Pathan (6) wicket-keeper Kolkata to backfoot. Chris Lynn returned to the pavilion in the eighth over and in the next five overs Kolkata could only add 24 runs.
Kolkata did not seem to be moving towards big scores, but adding 23 runs in the last over of the innings brought by Mitchell McClenaghan, Manish gave his team a respectable sum.
Manish hit five fours in his 47 balls and hit six sixes and remained unbeaten till the end.
For the Mumbai, Kurnool took three wickets. Kurnool also did the most economical bowling. He gave 24 runs in his spell of four overs. Lasith Malinga got two wickets and McLenaghn and Jaspreet Bumrah got one wicket each. Harbhajan Singh could not get any wicket.
This is the first win in the second match of Mumbai in the season, while Kolkata’s first defeat in the second match. On the basis of run rate, however, Kolkata is second in the numeral table.
